The Autumn Rain.
by Mrs. P. P. Sompayrag.
‘ She sits beside a lonely hearth, And listens to the autumn rain,
Which, like a shower of sorrowing tears,
Is falling on the window pane.
Silent it comes from mossy eaves,
And yet, throughout the livelong day,
Upon the glass have tapped the leaves,
Like withered fingers of decay;
Drop, drop, drop,
It patters on the roof, and falls
Down mossy eaves and shelving walls.
'Tis dark I no sunbeams now may seize
The prisoned rainbows in those drops;
No liquid diamond, with its rays,
The vagrant fancy wiles, and stops;
But flickering shadows on the wall,
Gliding like phantoms, round, about,
The pattering raindrops, as they fall,
In murmuring cadence from without,
Drop, drop, drop;
Lulling the senses to repose,
A charm like music o'er her throws.
Alone she dreams the eve away,
Watching the glittering tongues of flame,
Which mid the dying embers play,
Like things which have a shape and name.
The shadows of the sweet twilight
Have faded into deeper gloom;
The day hath pass'd, and somber night
Steals into that dark and silent room,
And drop, drop, drop,
The rain in quiet, ceaseless falls,
Comes from the mossy saves and walls.
Where men have lived, where men have died,
Where childish voices have been heard,
Where home affections have the tide
Of life's refinent wavelets stirred,
There dwell, impalpable as air,
The shadows of the real;
And Fancy's fingers, light and fair,
Unveil the soft ideal,
No widowed wife, no childless dame,
With check grown thin with woe, and pale,
Sits listening now to hear the rain
Take up its dull, unwearying tale,
Drop, drop, drop;
But all the room is filled with light,
With joyous tones, and fires bright.
Now glide in hers, soft, dimpled hands.
Kisses her smiling eyelids close,
And loving fingers smooth the bands
Of glossy hair which round her flows,
Oh! murmuring rain, oh! autumn rain,
Flow on with melancholy sound;
'Twere cruel now, to hush thy strain,
And break the spell by which she's bound.
Drop, drop, drop.
Alas! those lips are still, and cold
Those gentle fingers 'neath the mold.
'Tis many a day since little hands
Toyed with those faded tresses,
'Tis many a day since those pale lips
Were warmed by love's caresses;
Yet, lost to all this outward world,
She lives her life alone, apart,
And o'er her wasted cheek but comes
The glow of fires within her heart,
Drop, drop, drop.
She looks not outward through the gloom,
Nor thinks it falls upon the tomb.
And, thus is ours a two-old life--
One half-awake, one half in dreams;
Until illusions are more rife
With truth, than that which only seems.
Then bless the fancies which beguile
The heart from real, present pain,
And list, with drowsy ear the while,
The murmur of the autumn rain,
Drop, drop, drop.
As, pattering on the roof, it falls
From mossy eves and shelving walls.
’ Natchitoches, January, 1862.
