Last night, as the children picked tomatoes from our window sill in the middle of the storm, I was amazed by the power of this rain that was still much diminished from the night before. And then, this morning, when I opened the window, and saw that still more tomatoes had ripened, this poem would not leave my mind.
There came a wind like a bugle; It quivered through the grass, And a green chill upon the heat So ominous did pass We barred the windows and the doors As from an emerald ghost; The doom’s electric moccasin That very instant passed. On a strange mob of panting trees, And fences fled away, And rivers where the houses ran Those looked that lived—that Day— The bell within the steeple wild The flying tidings whirled. How much can come And much can go, And yet abide the world!