What could be lovelier than to hear
The summer rain
Cutting across the heat, as scythes
Cut across the grain?
Falling upon the steaming roof
With sweet uproar
Tapping and rapping wildly at the door?
No, do not lift the latch, but through the pane
We’ll stand and watch the circus pageant
Of the rain,
And see the lightening, like a tiger, striped and dread,
And hear the thunder cross the shaken sky
With elephant tread. – Elizabeth Coatsworth
The Garden Times 