“The day is cold, and dark, and dreary, It rains, and the wind is never weary.” One who sent out, some years ago, a volume of unfulfilled promise, writes-- “How beautiful the yesterday that stood Over me like a rainbow! I am alone, The past is past. I see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea.” And so on, generally; all that is dreary, uninviting, dismal, seems connected in the English mind with rain. In the English mind, I say, for I suppose the want of appreciation of it arises from its somewhat abundance in our climate. But how differently is it regarded by the poets of an Eastern land! How beautiful the description-- “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: Thou preparest them corn, when Thou hast so provided for it: Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: Thou settlest the furrows thereof: Thou makest it soft with showers: Thou blessest the springing thereof.” How lovingly it is spoken of! That “gracious rain upon Thine inheritance,” refreshing it when it was weary; the “rain upon the mown grass, and showers that water the earth.” How its mention is a signal for thanksgiving--“Sing unto the Lord, who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth.” * * * * * To be rightly appreciated in our climate, rain should certainly come after a drought. Most people, no doubt, then appreciate it, because of its watering the crops, or laying the dust. But the true lover of rain regards it not merely or chiefly in this utilitarian matter-of-fact aspect. He has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, _as rain_, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth. It refreshes and cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foliaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves. Let the drought have continued two months; let the glass have been, at last, steadily falling for a day or two; let, at last, a delicious mellow gloom have overspread the hot glaring heavens; let it have brooded all day, with a constant momently yet lingering promise of rain. The cattle stand about with a sort of pleasing dreamy anticipation; they know rain is coming, and no more muddy shallow ponds, and dry choking herbage for them. The birds expect it, and chirp and nestle in the foliage, important, excited, joyful. Or some one thrush or blackbird, amid the chirping hush of the others, constitutes himself the loud spokesman of their joy. So Keble-- “Deep is the silence as of summer noon, When a soft shower Will trickle soon, A gracious rain, freshening the weary bower-- Oh sweetly then far off is heard The clear note of some lonely bird.”