After Rain

AFTER rain, after rain,
O sparkling Earth!
All things are new again,
Bathed as at birth.
Now the lovely storm hath ceased,
Drenched and released
Upward springs the glistening bough,
In sunshine now;
And the raindrop from the leaf
Runs and slips;
Ancient forests have relief;
Old foliage drips.
All the Earth doth seem
Like to Diana issuing from the stream,
Her body flushing from the wave,
Glistening in beauty grave ;
Or like perhaps to Venus, when she rose,
And looked with dreamy stare across the sea,
As yet unconscious of her woes,
Her woes, and all her wounds that were to be.
Or now again !
After the rain,
Earth like that early garden shines,
Vested in vines.
Oh, green, green
Eden is seen !
After weeping skies
Rising Paradise!
God there for his pleasure,
In divinest leisure,
Walking in the sun,
Which hath newly run.
Soon I might perceive
The long-tressèd Eve,
Startled by the shower,
Venture from her bower,
Looking for Adam under perilous sky ;
While he hard by
Emerges from the slowly dropping blooms,
And odorous green glooms.

Stephen Phillips.