POETRY.
THE BURSTING OF THE MONSOON.
r.
PALE was the morn, with deep cloud-masses hung, But ever and anon a fitful ray Of watery sunlight pierced the curtain grey ; And o'er the plain, long, spectral shadows flung.
Deep lay the dust ; to every leaf it clung, And every blade of wan, sun-whitened grass.
Faint and obscure, as through a smoke-dimmed glass, All Nature showed.. Silent was every tongue Of languid beast and bird, save when some kite, Circling in far-off spaces of the sky, Shrilled. loud his melancholy, homeless cry.
Long, rainless weeks of scorching wind and glare Had burnt green field and garden brown and bare, Till all things ached with fierce excess of light.
But far away, across the broad expanse Of shifting sand, wherethrough meandered slow The shrunken river's course, I marked a low, Long bar of leaden-coloured cloud advance Swiftly against the wind. With eager glance, I watched the curving headlands whitely gleam Against the nearing darkness. On the stream Grey ripples shivered, and in spiral dance Dust-eddies whirling rose. The headlands first, And then low spits of sand, as in a shroud, Were covered by the overwhelming cloud That filled half heaven ; and now the scent at last Of longed-for rain I knew ; a sudden blast Roared through the trees,— and the monsoon had burst !
H. C. I.
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