<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523121" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Shower In War-Time</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rain, rain, sweet warm rain,<br>On the wood and on the plain!<br>Rain, rain, warm and sweet,<br>Summer wood lush leafy and loud,<br>With note of a throat that ripples and rings,<br>Sad sole sweet from her central seat,<br>Bubbling and trilling,<br>Filling, filling, filling<br>The shady space of the green dim place<br>With an odour of melody,<br>Till all the noon is thrilling,<br>And the great wood hangs in the balmy day<br>Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud,<br>And singing because she sings!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In the sheltering wood,<br>At that hour I stood;<br>I saw that in that hour<br>Great round drops, clear round drops,<br>Grew on every leaf and flower,<br>And its hue so fairly took<br>And faintly, that each tinted elf<br>Trembled with a rarer self,<br>Even as if its beauty shook<br>With passion to a tenderer look.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Rain, rain, sweet warm rain,<br>On the wood and on the plain!<br>Rain, rain, warm and sweet,<br>Summer wood lush leafy and loud,<br>With note of a throat that ripples and rings,<br>Sad sole sweet from her central seat,<br>Bubbling and trilling,<br>Filling, filling, filling<br>The shady space of the green dim place<br>With an odour of melody,<br>Till all the noon is thrilling,<br>And the great wood hangs in the balmy day,<br>Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud,<br>And singing because she sings!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Then out of the sweet warm weather<br>There came a little wind sighing, sighing:<br>Came to the wood sighing, and sighing went in,<br>Sighed thro' the green grass, and o'er the leaves brown,<br>Sighed to the dingle, and, sighing, lay down,<br>While all the flowers whispered together.<br>Then came swift winds after her who was flying,<br>Swift bright winds with a jocund din,<br>Sought her in vain, her boscage was so good,<br>And spread like baffled revellers thro' the wood.<br>Then, from bough, and leaf, and bell,<br>The great round drops, the clear round drops,<br>In fitful cadence drooped and fell-<br>Drooped and fell as if some wanton air<br>Were more apparent here and there,<br>Sphered on a favourite flower in dewy kiss,<br>Grew heavy with delight and dropped with bliss.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Rain, rain, sweet warm rain,<br>On the wood and on the plain;<br>Rain, rain, still and sweet,<br>For the winds have hushed again,<br>And the nightingale is still,<br>Sleeping in her central seat.<br>Rain, rain, summer rain,<br>Silent as the summer heat.<br>Doth it fall, or doth it rise?<br>Is it incense from the hill,<br>Or bounty from the skies?<br>Or is the face of earth that lies<br>Languid, looking up on high,<br>To the face of Heaven so nigh<br>That their balmy breathings meet?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Rain, rain, summer rain,<br>On the wood and on the plain:<br>Rain, rain, rain, until<br>The tall wet trees no more athirst,<br>As each chalice green doth fill,<br>See the pigmy nations nurst<br>Round their distant feet, and throw<br>The nectar to the herbs below.<br>The droughty herbs, without a sound,<br>Drink it ere it reach the ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Rain, rain, sweet warm rain,<br>On the wood and on the plain,<br>And round me like a dropping well,<br>The great round drops they fell and fell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I say not War is good or ill;<br>Perchance they may slay, if they will,<br>Who killing love, and loving kill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I do not join yon captive's din;<br>Some man among us without sin<br>Perhaps may rightly lock him in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I do not grant the Tyrant's plea;<br>The slaves potential to be free<br>Already are the Powers that be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease,<br>I know that as the years increase,<br>The flower of all is human peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The Flower.' Vertumnus hath repute<br>O'er Flora; yet methinks the fruit<br>But alter ego of the root;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And that which serves our fleshly need,<br>Subserves the blossom that doth feed<br>The soul which is the life indeed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Nor well he deems who deems the rose<br>Is for the roseberry, nor knows<br>The roseberry is for the rose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And Autumn's garnered treasury,<br>But prudent Nature's guarantee<br>That Summer evermore shall be,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And yearly, once a year, complete<br>That top and culmen exquisite<br>Whereto the slanting seasons meet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease,<br>I know that, as the years increase,<br>The flower of all is human peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The flower.' Yet whether shall we sow<br>A blossom or a seed? I know<br>The flower will rot, the seed will grow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>By this the rain had ceased, and I went forth<br>From that Dodona green of oak and beech.<br>But ere my steps could reach<br>The hamlet, I beheld along the verge<br>A flight of fleeing cloudlets that did urge<br>Unequal speed, as when a herd is driven<br>By the recurring pulse of shoutings loud.<br>I saw; but held the omen of no worth.<br>For by the footway not a darnel stirred,<br>And still the noon slept on, nor even a bird<br>Moved the dull air; but, at each silent hand,<br>Upon the steaming land<br>The hare lay basking, and the budded wheat<br>Hung slumberous heads of sleep.<br>Then I was 'ware that a great northern cloud<br>Moved slowly to the centre of the heaven.<br>His white head was so high<br>That the great blue fell round him like the wide<br>And ermined robe of kings. He sat in pride<br>Lonely and cold; but methought when he spied<br>From that severe inhospitable height<br>The distant dear delight,<br>The meiting world with summer at her side,<br>His pale brow mellowed with a mournful light,<br>And like a marble god he wept his stony tears.<br>The loyal clouds that sit about his feet,<br>All in their courtier kinds,<br>Do weep to see him weep.<br>After the priceless drops the sycophant winds<br>Leap headlong down, and chase, and swirl, and sweep<br>Beneath the royal grief that scarce may reach the ground.<br>To see their whirling zeal,<br>Unlikely things that in the kennel lie<br>Begin to wheel and wheel;<br>The wild tarantula-will spreads far and nigh,<br>And spinning straws go spiral to the sky,<br>And leaves long dead leap up and dance their ghastly round.<br>And so it happened in the street<br>'Neath a broad eave I stood and mused again,<br>And all the arrows of the driving rain<br>Were tipped with slanting sleet.<br>I mused beneath the straw pent of the bricked<br>And sodded cot, with damp moss mouldered o'er,<br>The bristled thatch gleamed with a carcanet,<br>And from the inner eaves the reeking wet<br>Dripped; dropping more<br>And more, as more the sappy roof was sapped,<br>And wept a mirkier wash that splashed and clapped<br>The plain-stones, dribbling to the flooded door.<br>A plopping pool of droppings stood before,<br>Worn by a weeping age in rock of easy grain.<br>O'erhead, hard by, a pointed beam o'erlapped,<br>And from its jewelled tip<br>The slipping slipping drip<br>Did whip the fillipped pool whose hopping plashes ticked.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Let one or thousands loose or bind,<br>That land's enslaved whose sovran mind<br>Collides the conscience of mankind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And free-whoever holds the rood-<br>Where Might in Right, and Power in Good,<br>Flow each in each, like life in blood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The age has broken from his kings!<br>Stop him! Behold his feet have wings.<br>Upon his back the hero springs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Tho' Jack's horse run away with Jack,<br>Who knows, while Jack keeps on his back,<br>If Jack rule him or he rule Jack?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Cuckoo takes the mud away!<br>True the sun doth shine all day;<br>Cuckoo takes the mud away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Who sneers at heirloom rank? God knows<br>Each man that lives, each flower that blows.<br>There may be lords-and a blue rose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Even to the sod whereon you prate<br>This land is ours. Do you debate<br>How we shall manage our estate?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Norman, War granted you your lease:<br>The very countersign of Peace<br>Shows the first Lessor can release.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Therefore altho' you cannot guide,<br>Be wise; and spare the almighty pride<br>Of that mild monster that you ride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>If England's head and heart were one,<br>Where is that good beneath the sun<br>Her noble hands should leave undone!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Small unit, hast thou hardiness<br>To bid mankind to battle? Yes.<br>The worm will rout them, and is less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The world assaults? Nor fight nor fly.<br>Stand in some steadfast truth, and eye<br>The stubborn siege grow old and die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>My army is manking. My foe<br>The very meanest truth I know.<br>Shall I come back a conqueror? No.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Wouldst light? See Phosphor shines confest,<br>Turn thy broad back upon the west;<br>Stand firm. The world will do the rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Stand firm. Unless thy strength can climb<br>Yon alp, and from that height sublime<br>See, ere we see, the advancing time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Act for to-day? Friend, this 'to-day'<br>Washed Adam's feet and streams away<br>Far into yon Eternity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Build as men steer, by chart and pole;<br>Care for each stone as each were sole,<br>Yet lay it conscious of the whole.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Sow with the signs. The wise man heeds<br>The seasons. Capricornus feeds<br>Upon the sluggard's winter seeds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Each enterprise, or small or great,<br>Hath its own touchhole; watch and wait,<br>Find that and fire the loaded fate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Do in few acts whate'er thou dost;<br>Let thy oe play to his own cost,<br>Who moves the oftenest errs the most.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Choose arms from Nature's armouries,<br>Plagues, conflagrations, storms, and seas,<br>For God is surety for all these.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Our town is threatened by a bear,<br>We've manned the thresholds far and near,<br>Fools! send five men to kill the bear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Do good to him that hates thee. Good,<br>Still good. By physic or by food?<br>By letting or by stanching blood?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Do as thou wouldst be done by. See<br>What it were well he did to thee,<br>He pure as thou, thou foul as he.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Lovest thou not Peace? Aye, moralist,<br>Both Peace and thee. Yet well I wist<br>They who shut Janus did slay Christ.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sydney+Thompson+Dobell">Sydney Thompson Dobell</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523121" data-title="A Shower In War-Time de Sydney Thompson Dobell" data-description="Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain! Rain, rain, warm and sweet, Summer wood lush leafy and loud, With note of a throat that ripples and rings, Sad sole sweet from her central seat, Bubbling and trilling, Filling, filling, fi..."></div> </div> </div>

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