Nature
We to Sigh Instead of Sing
From Green Fields and Running Brooks (1893)
"Rain and rain! and rain and rain!"
Yesterday we muttered
Grimly as the grim refrain
That the thunders uttered:
All the heavens under cloud--
All the sunshine sleeping;
All the grasses limply bowed
With their weight of weeping.
Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!
Never end of sighing;
Rain and rain for our reply--
Hopes half-drowned and dying;
Peering through the window-pane,
Naught but endless raining--
Endless sighing, and, as vain,
Endlessly complaining.
Shine and shine! and shine and shine!
Ah! to-day the splendor!--
All this glory yours and mine--
God! but God is tender!
We to sigh instead of sing,
Yesterday, in sorrow,
While the Lord was fashioning
This for our To-morrow!
Cite this poem
MLA
Riley, James Whitcomb. “We to Sigh Instead of Sing.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/riley/129/.
Chicago
Riley, James Whitcomb. “We to Sigh Instead of Sing.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/riley/129/.
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