SEVENTH IDYLL Summer Rain Over from the blue ridge pines, across a low sky blazing midsummer heat, thunder would close in, rumbling to tear the swollen cloud-folds open; with rain to follow, in a nearing drone, hissing tough over the woods, fuming on field-border elms and on the still uncovered props of a hayrack out in the field: in large, splattering drops it spills itself on yard and barnroof, rousing harsh in the roadside lindens, gushing down stiff-twigged twining-sticks, down hopbuds, big heavy drops drubbing orchards and garden plots, slashing into ryefields, felling the stalks, chopping at pea-vines, and lashing the dung-caked wheels of a wagon left out in the yard; then takes off, sudden and full of wind, fuming, up in the pines, while its covering drone fades from the black-branched alder hedge; with only the kids now splashing through puddles that swamp the low-lying fields and grazing meadows, and wading the clayey overflow gullies to launch twigs and splinters, now only the men left stranded for shelter under an elm stare after the rain, trailing its mist in the woods, and listen for the last of the thunder, rumbling off.

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