"The Sweet, Low Speech of the Rain"

The Sweet, Low Speech of the Rain

It is pleasant to lie in the gloaming
        When the autumn is on the wane,
And the careful, rejoicing reaper
        Has gathered and stored his grain,
And hear at the doors and the windows
        The sweet, low speech of the rain.

To put by the thought of the sailor
        Far out on the storm-rocked main,
Where the fierce waves leap and struggle
        Like beasts in passionate pain,
And lie by the hearth and listen
        To the sweet, low speech of the rain.

Ah, May has the burst of the blossom,
        And the red of the willow vein,
And the glad uplift of the flowers
        That lead in the fragrant train;
But nothing so dear as the sweet, low
        Speech of the autumn rain.

July has the rose and the purple,
        And the sunset's golden stain
On the river that draws thro' the valley
        A glittering, wave-linked chain;
But never this lyrical, tremulous,
        Sweet, low speech of the rain.

Each heart knows the joy of the winter,
        The drift of the snow on the plain,
The book and the charm of the fireside,
        The icicles fringing the pane;
But ah, for the faltering, pausing,
        Sweet, low speech of the rain.

Old friends of my heart come to-morrow,
        Remembrance, Regret, and Pain,
But to-night I will lie in the gloaming
        And be lulled by the lure of the rain—
By the rhythmical, lyrical, rhyming,
        Sweet, low speech of the rain.

"The Sweet, Low Speech of the Rain" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).