Communing with Nature.

 One evening I sat on a heavenward hill,

The winds were asleep and all nature was still, 

Wee children came round me to play at my knee, 

As my mind floated rudderless over the sea. 

I put out one hand to caress them, but held 

With the other my nose, for these cherubim smelled. 

I cast a few glances upon the old sun; 

He was red in the face from the race he had run, 

But he seemed to be doing, for aught I could see, 

Quite well without any assistance from me. 

And so I directed my wandering eye 

Around to the opposite side of the sky, 

And the rapture that ever with ecstasy thrills 

Through the heart as the moon rises bright from the hills, 

Would in this case have been most exceedingly rare, 

Except for the fact that the moon was not there. 

But the stars looked right lovingly down in the sea, 

And, by Jupiter, Venus was winking at me! 

The gas in the city was flaring up bright, 

Montgomery Street was resplendent with light; 

But I did not exactly appear to advance 

A sentiment proper to that circumstance. 

So it only remains to explain to the town 

That a rainstorm came up before I could come down. 

As the boots I had on were uncommonly thin 

My fancy leaked out as the water leaked in. 

Though dampened my ardour, though slackened my strain, 

I’ll “strike the wild lyre” who sings the sweet rain!

Ambrose Bierce