The fragments of their sacrificial _ollas_ lay strewn among the bowlders, but the worshippers were dead; and now a stranger prayed to his own God for rain. As he sat at his desk that night writing to Lucy about the drought, the memory of those Indian signs came upon him suddenly and, seizing a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write. At the second stanza he paused, planned out his rhymes and hurried on again, but just as his poem seemed finished, he halted at the last line. Wrestle as he would he could not finish it--the rhymes were against him--it would not come right. Ah, that is what sets the artist apart from all the under-world of dreamers--his genius endures to the end; but the near-poet struggles like a bee limed in his own honey. What a confession of failure it was to send away--a poem unfinished, or finished wrong! And yet--the unfinished poem was like him. How often in the past had he left things unsaid, or said them wrong. Perhaps Lucy would understand the better and prize it for its faults. At last, just as it was, he sent it off, and so it came to her hand. A PRAYER FOR RAIN Upon this blasted rock, O Sun, behold Our humble prayer for rain--and here below A tribute from the thirsty stream, that rolled Bank-full in flood, but now is sunk so low Our old men, tottering, yet may stride acrost And babes run pattering where the wild waves tossed. The grass is dead upon the stem, O Sun! The lizards pant with heat--they starve for flies-- And they for grass--and grass for rain! Yea, none Of all that breathe may face these brazen skies And live, O Sun, without the touch of rain. Behold, thy children lift their hands--in vain! Drink up the water from this _olla's_ brim And take the precious corn here set beside-- Then summon thy dark clouds, and from the rim Of thy black shield strike him who hath defied Thy power! Appease thy wrath, Great Sun--but give Ah, give the touch of rain to those that live!