TO ST. SWITHIN.
“The rain it raineth every day.”
HE Dawn is overcast, the morning low’rs,
On ev’ry window-frame hang beaded damps
Like rows of small illumination lamps,
To celebrate the Jubilee of Show’rs!
A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves,
The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers,
And from the Houses’ eaves
Tumble eaves-droppers.
The hundred clerks that live along the street,
Bondsmen to mercantile and City schemers,
With squashing, sloshing and galoching feet,
Go paddling, paddling, through the wet, like steamers,
Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend—
Umbrellas pass of every shade of green,
And now and then a crimson one is seen,
Like an Umbrella ripen’d.
Over the way a waggon
Stands with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking,
While in the George and Dragon
The man is keeping himself dry—and drinking!
The Butcher’s boy skulks underneath his tray,
Hats shine—shoes don’t—and down droop collars,
And one blue Parasol cries all the way
To school, in company with four small scholars!
Unhappy is the man to-day who rides,
Making his journey sloppier, not shorter;
Aye, there they go, a dozen of outsides,
Performing on “a Stage with real water!”
A dripping Pauper crawls along the way,
The only real willing out-of-doorer
And says, or seems to say,
“Well, I am poor enough—but here’s a pourer!”
The scene in water colours thus I paint,
Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint!
Mother of all the Family of Rainers!
Saint of the Soakers!
Making all people croakers,
Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers!
And why you mizzle forty days together,
Giving the earth your water-soup to sup,
I marvel—Why such wet, mysterious weather?
I wish you’d clear it up!
Why cast such cruel dampers
On pretty Pic Nics, and against all wishes
Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers,
And volunteer, unask’d, to wash the dishes?
Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot,
To cling like lady-birds around a tree—
Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea,
By throwing your cold water upon hot?
Cannot a rural maiden, or a man,
Seek Hornsey-Wood by invitation, sipping
Their green with Pan,
But souse you come, and show their Pan, all dripping!
Why upon snow-white table-cloths and sheets,
That do not wait, or want a second washing,
Come squashing?
Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets,
As if there were no Water-Cart contractors,
No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys ruddy
Spooning out puddles muddy,
Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors!