And the fog, though not ornamental—unless we except that dry haze, the Indian summer—may be useful in preventing a frost, or in keeping a parched earth from drying too rapidly. But for this last, all the world prefers the rain, and sings with Longfellow:
SPECTER OF THE BROCKEN.
“How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out,
From the throat of the overflowing spout,
Across the window pane it pours and pours,
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river, down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain.”
Not always welcome; for we find the same poet moaning:
“The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,
It rains, and the rain is never weary.”