And suddenly, unexpectedly, a daring impulse seized her. “No!” she thought, and set her teeth—“I’ll let him cry! I’ll cure him of this—and I’ll do it to-night!” So she turned and told Cedric to go to sleep; at which, of course, the child began to scream.
Corydon lay very still in the dark, her eyes wide and every nerve tense. She could not feel, she could not think; it seemed as though she were deprived of every sense except that of hearing; and in her, through her, and around her rang a senseless din, piercing, intense, increasing in volume every minute, and completely drowning out the beating of the rain.
“Can I stand it?” she thought. “Or will his lungs burst? And yet, I must, I must—this can’t go on forever!” And so she clenched her hands and waited. But the sounds did not diminish in the slightest; ten minutes twenty minutes must have passed, and the baby only seemed to gain increased power with each crescendo.
It seemed to Corydon at last as though she had always lain like this, and as though she must for endless time. She found herself getting used to it even; her muscles relaxed. There came to her a sense of the ludicrous side of it. “He means to conquer me!” she thought. “Can I hold out? If I only had something to think about, then I’d be a match for him.” And suddenly the inspiration came to her. “I’ll write a poem!”
What should it be about? The rain had been increasing in violence, and she became conscious of the steady downpour; it fascinated her, and she concentrated her attention upon it, and began—-
“I am the rain, that comes in spring!”
So, after a while, she found herself in the throes of composition; she was eager, excited—and marvel of marvels, utterly forgetful of the baby! She had never tried to write verses before; but it did not seem at all difficult to her now.
The poem was simple and optimistic—it told of the beneficent qualities of rain, as it would appear to one whose roof did not leak. Somewhere in the course of it there was this stanza:
“I am the rain that comes at night,
When all in slumber is folded light—
Save one by weary vigils worn
Who counteth the drops unto the morn.”
This seemed to her an impressive bit, and she wondered what Thyrsis would think of it.