The poetry of earth is never dead;
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:
That is the grasshopper's.[1]

[1] _Poems_, by John Keats, p. 93.

The strong rains, which sometimes come down in summer-time, are a noble
interruption to the drought and indolence of hot weather. They seem as
if they had been collecting a supply of moisture equal to the want of
it, and come drenching the earth with a mighty draught of freshness. The
rushing and tree-bowing winds that precede them, the dignity with which
they rise in the west, the gathering darkness of their approach, the
silence before their descent, the washing amplitude of their
out-pouring, the suddenness with which they appear to leave off, taking
up, as it were, their watery feet to sail onward, and then the sunny
smile again of nature, accompanied by the "sparkling noise" of the
birds, and those dripping diamonds the rain-drops;--there is a grandeur
and a beauty in all this, which lend a glorious effect to each other;
for though the sunshine appears more beautiful than grand, there is a
power, not even to be looked upon, in the orb from which it flows; and
though the storm is more grand than beautiful, there is always beauty
where there is so much beneficence.--_The Months_.


BATHING