Weekend Verses.

                    Autumn Rain
 
There's a sad, sad voice in the autumn rain,
Mournful rain;
As it beateth slowly against the pane,
Window pane.
And the wind sings by with a conscious breath,
And seems like a messenger whispering death,
As the flowers bend with a drooping eye--
Bend and die.

What gives such a sadness unto the rain?
Autumn rain;
For it sobs like a human heart in pain,
A heart in pain;
Does it know its drops with a chilly tread
Lie cold on the beauty that now is dead?
Does it know the beautiful must decay?
Passing away.

Sure the summer rain had a merry tone,
A laughing tone;
Its patter made melody all its own,
Yes, all its own;
The flowers looked up when it came from the skies,
And the drops for mischief fell right in their eyes,
And sparkled in brightness like mimic tears,
Joyful tears.

Then tell me, why is it this autumn rain,
Mournful rain,
Chills my very heart as it sweeps the pane?
Dripping pane.
Is it that it sighs o'er a summer fled,
O'er the graves where more than flowers lie dead;
Is it that memory lendeth a strain
To the sobbing rain?

O where are the hopes of the bright spring tide?
Sweet spring tide.
With the summer blossoms they too have died,
Yes, they have died.
They have fled away; will their bloom come back?
Will they bless again as I tread life's track?
Or, by and by on some other shore
Bloom evermore?

Sob on,--it is well,--O passionate rain;
'T is well, O rain,
Tho' the flowers now faded may bloom again,
Will bloom again;
Some things that have died with the summer's light,
Some things that have fled with the summer's flight,
Will never, no, never, come back again,
Sob on, O rain!

               ................  by: Mary T Lathrap