The rain of autumn chills like ague’s shivers cold.
The spring rain nourishes whate’er it falls upon.
Autumnal showers but bleach and shrivel; all turns wan.
Thus is it with the cold, the wind, and eke the sun;
They’re means from which such different phases seem to run.140
In things invisible the same rule still holds good;
Advantage, loss, annoyance, fraud, affliction’s flood.
The words of saints are like the vernal breeze in power;
They cause sweet flowers to open in man’s bosom bower.
And like the rains of spring on herbage of the field,