1.I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the sea and the streams;I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet birds every one,When rocked to rest on their Mother‘s breast.
And whiten the green plains under;And then again I dissolve it in rain,And laugh as I pass in thunder.
2.I sift the snow on the mountains below,And their great pines groan aghast;And all the night ’tis my pillow white,While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,Lightning,my pilot,sits;In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder-It struggles and howls at fits:
Over earth and ocean,with gentle motion,This pilot is guiding me,3.The sanguineSunrise,with his meteoreyes,And his burning plumes outspread,Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,When the morning-star shines dead,-As on the jag of a mountain crag,Which an earthquake rocks and swings,An eagle alit one moment may sitIn the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe,from the lit sea beneath,Its ardoursof rest and of love,And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above,-With wings folded I rest,on mine airy nest,As still as a brooding dove.
4.That orbed maiden,with white fire laden,Whom mortals call the Moon,Glides glimmering o‘er my fleece-like floor,By the midnight breezes strewn;And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,Which only the angels hear,May have broken the woofof my tent’s thin roof,The stars peep behind her and peer;And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,Like a swarm of golden bees,When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,Till the calm rivers,lakes,and seas,Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,Are each paved with the moon and these.
5.I am the daughter of Earth and Water,And the nursling of the Sky:
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;I change,but I cannot die.
For after the rain-when,with never a stain,The pavilionof heaven is bare,And the winds and sunbeams,with their convexBuild up the blue dome of air-gleams.