O furry living things, adream On winter's drowsy breast, (How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!) Arise and follow where a gleam Of wizard gold unbinds the stream, And all the woodland windings seem With sweet expectance blest. My birds, come back! the hollow sky Is weary for your note. (Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!) Ere May's soft minions hereward fly, Shame on ye, laggards, to deny The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye, The tawny, shining coat!--_Alice Brown_ THE WAVES OF BREFFNY The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart; But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart. A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill, And there is glory in it, and terror on the wind; But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind. The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way, Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal; But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray, And the little waves of Breffny go sweeping through my soul. --_Eva Gore-Booth_ The two following poems attack the same theme, a fruitful and varied one to lovers of Lomaland where the winter rains are the year's beneficence. But note the full rich lines of the work of the unknown writer, albeit the sonnet is of course the more difficult poetic form. THE FOUNTAINS OF THE RAIN The merchant clouds that cruise the sultry sky, As soon as they have spent their freight of rain, Plot how the cooling thrift they may regain: All night along the river-marsh they lie, And at their ghostly looms swift shuttles ply, To weave them nets wherewith the streams to drain; And often in the sea they cast a seine, And draw it, dripping, past some headland high. Many a slender naiad, with a sigh, Is in their arms uptaken from the plain; The trembling myrmidons of dew remain No longer than the flash of morning's eye, Then back unto their misty fountains fly: This is the source and journey of the rain. --_Edith Matilda Thomas_ RAIN The patient rain at early summer dawn; The long, lone autumn drip; the damp, sweet hush Of springtime, when the glinting drops seem gone Into the first notes of the hidden thrush; The solemn, dreary beat Of winter rain and sleet; The mad, glad, passionate calling of the showers To the unblossomed hours; The driving, restless midnight sweep of rain; The fitful sobbing, and the smile again,