In this existunce, dry and wet
  Will overtake the best of men—­
Some little skift o’ clouds’ll shet
  The sun off now and then.—­
    And mayby, whilse you’re wundern who
    You’ve fool-like lent your umbrell’ to,
    And want it—­out’ll pop the sun,
    And you’ll be glad you hain’t got none!

It aggervates the farmers, too—­
   They’s too much wet, er too much sun,
Er work, er waitin’ round to do
   Before the plowin’ ’s done: 
     And mayby, like as not, the wheat,
     Jest as it’s lookin’ hard to beat,
    Will ketch the storm—­and jest about
    The time the corn’s a-jintin’ out.

These-here CY-Clones a-foolin’ round—­
  And back’ard crops!—­and wind and rain!—­
And yit the corn that’s wallerd down
  May elbow up again!—­
    They hain’t no sense, as I can see,
    Fer mortuls, sich as us, to be
    A-faultin’ Natchur’s wise intents,
    And lockin’ horns with Providence!

It hain’t no use to grumble and complane;
  It’s jest as cheap and easy to rejoice.—­
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
  W’y, rain’s my choice.

THE BROOK-SONG

       Little brook!  Little brook! 
       You have such a happy look—­
Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and
          curve and crook—­
     And your ripples, one and one,
     Reach each other’s hands and run
       Like laughing little children in the sun!

Little brook, sing to me: 
Sing about a bumblebee
That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled
mumblingly,
Because he wet the film
Of his wings, and had to swim,
While the water-bugs raced round and
laughed at him!

Little brook-sing a song
Of a leaf that sailed along
Down the golden-braided centre of your current
swift and strong,
And a dragon-fly that lit
On the tilting rim of it,
And rode away and wasn’t scared a bit.

And sing—­how oft in glee
Came a truant boy like me,
Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting
melody,
Till the gurgle and refrain
Of your music in his brain
Wrought a happiness as keen to him
as pain.

Little brook-laugh and leap! 
Do not let the dreamer weep: 
Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in
softest sleep;
And then sing soft and low
Through his dreams of long ago—­
Sing back to him the rest he used to
know!

THOUGHTS FER THE DISCURAGED FARMER

The summer winds is sniffin’ round the bloomin’
     locus’ trees;
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin’ honey, above board and on the
      sly,
Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin’ and stagger as they fly. 
The flicker on the fence-rail ’pears to jest spit on his
      wings
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings;
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin’-up his forelegs fer biz,
And the off-mare is a-switchin’ all of her tale they is.