at the time at which i am writing, a soft shower has just fallen. for months we have had scarcely any rain. even the massed primrose roots in the hedges, with the last few stragglings of their easter decorations here and there about them, have drooped their long broad leaves. the grass and the trees have seemed to remain at a standstill, as though waiting for something. the plough-land has stood in great unbroken lumps. the marsh-land has gaped open in huge cracks. the ponds have sunk a foot below their usual mark; the ditches give no savoury smell from their shallow green soup. the roads are like grindstones, wearing down your shoe-leather with myriad-pointed flint-powder, and your patience with loose stones that carry your legs away from your control and supervision. the roofs want washing, the148 drains want flooding, the butts want filling. when i pour waterpot after waterpot of water about the roots of some favourite or needy plant, the water runs off the caked ground as though it were a duck’s back; or, the mould being loosened, is sucked in, without the chance of collecting into a pool, and, seemingly, without quenching the fever-thirst of the earth.
all things and all people want rain: the farmers for their land, the cottager for his garden—a steady three or four hours’ downpour, not only such a slight shower as this, that, scarce having browned the beds, is already drying off from them.
just now, it is certain, rain would be appreciated, but still even now more for its usefulness, than for its beauty. for the beauty of rain is a thing often missed, i think, even by those who do keep, as they pass through this world, a keen eye for the creator’s thoughts, embodied in beauty about them: poems written on the world’s open page by the hand of the great poet, or maker. for, rightly regarded, from the vast epic of the starry heavens, to the simple pastoral of a dewdrop, or the lyric a bird, god’s works are to us the expression of his mind, the language which conveys to us his ideas. man’s noblest descriptive poetry—what is it but a weak endeavour to interpret to less gifted seers the beautiful thoughts of god?
and rain is one of these thoughts—a realised idea of the mind of the almighty. and since i find, both in men and in books, a general neglect, if not a rooted dislike, with regard to rain—as such, and putting out of sight its usefulness—i shall devote a few pages to the endeavour to set forth the beauty of this thought of god.
149
even tennyson, nature-loving tennyson, what word has he for the rain? of enid we are told—
“she did not weep, but o’er her meek eyes came a happy mist, like that which kept the heart of eden green before the useful trouble of the rain.”
150 nothing, then, even in the desire to praise it, better than “useful trouble”? i do not think that even wordsworth dwells with much frequency or delight on this friend of mine. longfellow has—
“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 the151 lord, who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth.”
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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.”
152 and at last it comes. you hear a patter here and there; you see a leaf here and there bob and blink about you; you feel a spot on your face, on your hand. and then the gracious rain comes, gathering its forces—steady, close, abundant. lean out of window, and watch, and listen. how delicious! the gradually-browning beds; the verandah beneath losing its scattered spots in a sheet of luminous wet; and, never pausing, the close, heavy, soft-rushing noise; the patter from the eaves, the
“two-fold sound, the clash hard by, and the murmur all round.”
the crisp drenching rustle from the dry foliage of the perceptibly grateful trees, broad pavilions for ever-chirping birds; the little plants, in speechless ecstasy, receiving cupful after cupful into the outspread leaves, that silently empty their gracious load, time after time, into the still expecting roots, and open their hands still for more. you can hardly leave the window. you come again at night; you have heard that ceaseless pour on the roof, on the skylight, and the loud clashing under the eaves, in the silence, as you went up late to bed. you open the window and let the mild cool air in, and look through the darkness, and listen, for you cannot see. on the vine-leaves about the casement is the steady
“sound of falling rain; a bird, awakened in its nest, gives a faint twitter of unrest, then smooths its plumes, and sleeps again.”
your light shines out into the deep dark, and touches the trees just about the house, and gives a dull gleam to some portion of153 the streaming lines. unwillingly you shut the window, and hear still, as you kneel and there is silence, the rushing undertone. or, if a cool breeze arise, sudden bursts of rattling drops come impetuously against the panes, with intervals of dreamy rustling, or in quick succession. you like to hear that sound as you lie in bed, for you think of the bedding plants that you have just put out, or of the burnt patches in the lawn, or of the turnip and onion seed; or, with a larger sympathy, you think of the great thirsty fields of corn, yellowing for want of rain; of the mill-stream, so long shallow and inadequate; of the wells in the cottage-gardens about you, and their turbid or exhausted condition. you look forward, ere you lose consciousness, to how next day all vegetation will have advanced and appear refreshed.
and next morning you look out from your window, as you dress, with a deep sense of luxurious enjoyment. the rain has continued steadily all night, until six in the morning. but it has ceased now, though the warm tender gloom still continues, and only just veils the bright sun, which now and then breaks through it. as you contemplate the scene from the open window, the refreshed look of the rich brown road, that was so white and dusty, makes you long to sally forth upon it. tearful puddles smile here and there on the walks; the drenched grass twinkles and sparkles, and reminds you of that exquisite description of “the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” and, breakfast over, you walk out, through the garden gate, a little way into the road. there is a peculiar, as it were, growing warmth in the air. everything seems to have attained a week’s growth154 in the one night. you remark the vivid gold-green patches in the hedges. the lime-trees—indeed, all the trees—make a most effective background with their black wet stems and branches for the radiant emeralds that have burst their pink caskets all over them. the corn-blades, the hedge-banks, the drooping boughs, have all a drenched, tearfully-grateful look.
you pass, well pleased, back into the garden again. how well the peas show in the dark mould, and how much taller are they than they were yesterday! the dull green of the potatoes, that appeared but here and there last time you looked, seems now to cover the beds. the little crumpled flowers of the currant and gooseberry bushes have developed all over them into many blossom-laden strings. in the flower-beds the annuals appear above the round sanded patches; and of the bedding plants, no geranium, heliotrope, or verbena droops a leaf. you go back into the house refreshed by the beauty of the rain, as much as vegetation has been by the rain itself. the worst of such a day is, that it makes you feel idle, indisposed to settle down to work, inclined from time to time to saunter out and watch nature chewing the cud of its late refreshment.
but this is only one example of the deliciousness of rain—one, you will say, picked, selected, exceptional. there are many other times at which it is beautiful. it is beautiful when it comes hurried and passionate, fleeing from the storm wind, hurled, like a volley of small musketry, against your streaming panes; and the few tarnished gold leaves of the beech-trees are struck down one after one by the bullets. it is beautiful in the midsummer, when it comes in light, soft155 showers, or, more in earnest, accompanied with thunder-music, straight and heavy; when, as the poet says—
“rolling as in sleep, low thunders bring the mellow rain.”
it is beautiful when it rains far away in the distance, the bright sun shining on the mound on which you stand, and only a few guerilla drops heralding the approach of the shower towards you. it is beautiful among leafless trees, in early spring or late autumn, under an avenue, or in a copse, when every long bough and black branch is glittering, strung with trembling diamonds; when, the force of the wind and rain being kept from you by the trees and underwood, the gentle sadness and quiet melancholy of the scene can be gathered into your heart. it is beautiful in a town, when you stand at the window, and watch the emptying streets; the gutters pour by in a yellow, twisted flood; the street becomes a river, and, as the sudden gust drives them before it,
“skirmishing drops rush with bright bayonets across the road.”
the window is lined with rows of brilliants, that gradually grow bigger and bigger, and waver and fall, ever supplied by a constant succession of new comers, like the scotch at flodden,
“each stepping where his comrade stood the instant that he fell.”
and, since i have mostly spoken of the beauty of rain in the country, i will quote a description of its beauty in london:—
156 “a slight, quick, fervid shower—tears more of happiness brimming over than anger breaking its bounds—had just fallen, and pricked the dry grey pavement into a dark lace pattern of spots, out of which you could select the newest by their being sharper in outline and darker than the rest. the aristocracy of five minutes ago, and the parvenues of the last moment, alike, as the soft warm rain fell now quicker and more petulantly passionate, melting one into the other, losing shape, place, and purpose, as the stone washed luminous brown, and transparent as slabs of cairngorm agate.”
londoners caught in a shower will surely thank me for this extract, and recall the description while they admire the process.
* * * * *
but if some people, notwithstanding my special pleading, still agree with coleridge’s address to the rain,—
“oh, rain, that i lie listening to you’re but a doleful sound at best,”
and echo his decision,—
“and, by the by, ’tis understood, you’re not so pleasant as you’re good”
for these i have yet a word.
if we cannot enjoy, let us accept rain at any rate without grumbling; ay, even though it last day after day; ay, though it spoil our pleasure-plans, or our crops—remembering at whose ordering it comes. people who grumble at the weather always remind me of the israelites grumbling at moses and aaron, the mere instruments used by the supreme. “what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the lord.”
157 from whence comes the shower that stops our pleasure-party; the drenching rain that falls, just when the hay or the corn was fit to carry? if such events move our ill-temper, or make us irritable and angry (and many are apt to be so), with whom is it that we are vexed? who has aggrieved us so that we speak as injured persons? let us have a care. what is that “it” that we speak of as being “tiresome,” “annoying”? the clouds, the winds, the rain—what are these, that we murmur against them? are not such murmurings really against the sender, if we trace them home? such a result is commonly born of thoughtlessness more than of purpose. but that will not excuse it.
“evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart.”
but evil it still is, and must remain. therefore grumbling at the weather appears to me to be something more than foolish and ungrateful. a little thought on the matter seems to mark it as impious and profane. a heathen philosopher would have despised the silliness of losing the balance of your temper, when there is no one that you dare blame for the cause. a christian ought surely to soar beyond this, and, in things little or large, to accustom himself to recognise a father’s ordering, and cheerfully to accept it, as sure to be the best and wisest.
i said a heathen might despise the folly of those who lose their temper because it rains. a beautiful anecdote occurs to me, which i met with in a very pleasant book, “domestic life in palestine,” by mary eliza rogers. this lady and her party were traversing, under the conduct of their guide, the fertile158 plains west of the carmel range. “rain began to fall in torrents; mohammed, our groom, threw a large arab cloak over me, saying, ‘may allah preserve you, o lady! while he is blessing the fields!’ thus pleasantly reminded, i could no longer feel sorry to see the pouring rain, but rode on rejoicing, for the sake of the sweet spring flowers and the broad fields of wheat and barley.”
can you fancy a more exquisite instance of the “art of putting things”? can you not imagine yourself positively enjoying the wetting, even though no whit alive to the beauty of rain, as rain? so much depends on the manner in which a thing is put before you; so much depends on the lead which is given to your way of looking at it. had a grumbling christian been beside the lady instead of the at least pious-languaged moslem, to mutter, and repine, and reiterate, “how very unfortunate” (whatever this word may mean) “we are!” would not a gloom and dulness obscure the memory of that159 ride, in her mind? whereas the beautiful thought of the arab, as it made the idea of the rain pleasant and lovely at the time, so it dwells with a rainbow brightness on all after-memories of that cloud.
but enough has been said as to the beauty of rain. it seems, after all, that much depends on our way of looking at the thing. if we regard rather the inconveniences that will sometimes attend it, we shall probably not even think of looking for the beauty that i have endeavoured to describe. but if our way is to look rather for what is pleasant than for what is disagreeable, in the common events of life; if we love nature in all her moods, and watch, with a lover’s eye, each sweet change in her face; especially if we regard god’s works as the language of god’s thoughts, and consider nothing as the offspring of chance, but all things as consequent on his ordering, who sees the sparrows fall, and by whom the very hairs of the head are all numbered—if this be our manner of regarding those dispensations which are above our control, i dare affirm that in nothing that the great maker expresses, shall we miss finding, not only use, but beauty. and if i have suggested to some minds any thoughts that may hereafter lead them to share my love for the beautiful rain, i rejoice that i have been to them the exponent of a beauty that they have missed hitherto; and i shall receive their gratitude when the soft showers come that water the earth. and if my meditations be read, unhappily for them, not during a dearth, but during a glut of rain, my pleasant labour will not have been in vain, if, though failing to make many admirers, i yet quiet some fretfulness, and correct some thoughtless repining. some rain, as well as some days, must160 be dark and dreary. but, after all, it rather receives its tinge of pleasantness or gloom from the colour of our own mind at the time, than itself influences our thoughts. let there be within us the clear shining of a contented mind, and the darkest clouds will never want for a rainbow. yea, such a mind, predisposed to enjoy and admire all that the creator sends, will need no mediation of an interpreter to bid it discern and gather in for itself the exceeding beauty of rain.