A Rainy Day

The beauty of this rainy day,     All silver-green and dripping gray,     Has stolen quite my heart away     From all the tasks I meant to do,     Made me forget the resolute blue     And energetic gold of things . . .     So soft a song the rain-bird sings.     Yet am I glad to miss awhile     The sun's huge domineering smile,     The busy spaces mile on mile,     Shut in behind this shimmering screen     Of falling pearls and phantom green;     As in a cloister walled with rain,     Safe from intrusions, voices vain,     And hurry of invading feet,     Inviolate in my retreat:     Myself, my books, my pipe, my fire -     So runs my rainy-day desire.     Or I old letters may con o'er,     And dream on faces seen no more,     The buried treasure of the years,     Too visionary now for tears;     Open old cupboards and explore     Sometimes, for an old sweetheart's sake,     A delicate romantic ache,     Sometimes a swifter pang of pain     To read old tenderness again,     As though the ink were scarce yet dry,     And She still She and I still I.     What if I were to write as though     Her letter came an hour ago!     An hour ago! - This post-mark says . . .     But out upon these rainy days!     Come tie the packet up again,     The sun is back - enough of rain.