every drop was good for a grain of golden corn, or a yellow cowslip,
or a buttercup, or a dandelion at least;--while this splendid rain
was falling, I say, with a musical patter upon the great leaves of
the horse-chestnuts, which hung like Vandyke collars about the necks
of the creamy, red-spotted blossoms, and on the leaves of the
sycamores, looking as if they had blood in their veins, and on a
multitude of flowers, of which some stood up and boldly held out
their cups to catch their share, while others cowered down,
laughing, under the soft patting blows of the heavy warm drops;--
while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean from the motes,
and the bad odors, and the poison-seeds that had escaped from their
prisons during the long drought;--while it fell, splashing and
sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft clashing--but stop! I
am stealing, I find, and not that only, but with clumsy hands
spoiling what I steal:--

"O Rain! with your dull twofold sound,
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round:"

--there! take it, Mr. Coleridge;--while, as I was saying, the lovely
little rivers whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their
own channels through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against
their banks as they hurry down and down, until at length they are
pulled up on a sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an
odorous flower, that first gasps and then sighs up a blissful scent,
or on the bald head of a stone that never says, Thank you;--while
the very sheep felt it blessing them, though it could never reach
their skins through the depth of their long wool, and the veriest
hedgehog--I mean the one with the longest spikes--came and spiked
himself out to impale as many of the drops as he could;--while the