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The Shower

By James Whitcomb Riley

Topics: classic

The landscape, like the awed face of a child,     Grew curiously blurred; a hush of death     Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild     The zephyr held its breath.     No wavering glamour-work of light and shade     Dappled the shivering surface of the brook;     The frightened ripples in their ambuscade     Of willows thrilled and shook.     The sullen day grew darker, and anon     Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky;     With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on     The storm's artillery.     The cloud above put on its blackest frown,     And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain,     The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down     In ravelled shreds of rain:     While I, transfigured by some wondrous art,     Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod,     My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart     Drenched with the love of God.

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Author:James Whitcomb Riley

"The landscape, like the awed face of a child,..." by James Whitcomb Riley

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James Whitcomb Riley

About James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) was an American poet known as the "Hoosier Poet." His dialect poems—including "Little Orphant Annie" and "When the Frost Is on the Punkin"—celebrate rural Indiana life and childhood nostalgia.

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