Barefooted boys scud up the street <br />Or skurry under sheltering sheds; <br />And schoolgirl faces, pale and sweet, <br />Gleam from the shawls about their heads. <br /> <br />Doors bang; and mother-voices call <br />From alien homes; and rusty gates <br />Are slammed; and high above it all, <br />The thunder grim reverberates. <br /> <br />And then, abrupt,--the rain! the rain!-- <br />The earth lies gasping; and the eyes <br />Behind the streaming window-pane <br />Smile at the trouble of the skies. <br /> <br />The highway smokes; sharp echoes ring; <br />The cattle bawl and cowbells clank; <br />And into town comes galloping <br />The farmer's horse, with streaming flank. <br /> <br />The swallow dips beneath the eaves, <br />And flirts his plumes and folds his wings; <br />And under the catawba leaves <br />The caterpillar curls and clings. <br /> <br />The bumble-bee is pelted down <br />The wet stem of the hollyhock; <br />And sullenly, in spattered brown, <br />The cricket leaps the garden walk. <br /> <br />Within, the baby claps his hands <br />And crows with rapture strange and vague; <br />Without, beneath the rosebush stands <br />A dripping rooster on one leg.<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-sudden-shower/
