Prelude

I

BELOVED, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often-praised; and be, ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes rain; the sparrow, too, —
Who watches with a hard eye, from seclusion
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.

II

There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing, —
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom,
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.

III

The timid bee goes back to hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the rain-dark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone . . .
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop, — on a hawthorn leaf, —
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

CONRAD AIKEN