A Wet Day

Dark, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly,
The day goes dully unto its close;
Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches,
Its fingers sully and wreck the rose.

Around the railing and garden-paling
The dripping lily hangs low its head:
A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineas
Droop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed.

In splashing mire about the byre
The cattle huddle, the farm-hand plods;
While to some neighbor’s a wagon labors
Through pool and puddle and clay that clods.

The day, unsplendid, at last is ended,
Is dead and buried, and night has come;--
Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless,
With weeping wearied, and sorrow-dumb.

Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunder
The clouds and o’er us smite rushing bars!
And through wild masses of storm, that passes,
Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.