Storm-clouds and thunder and dark rainy weather,
Wet streams are flowing all down the Shining Way;
Jimmy and Alice and I are here together,
Cooped in the nursery and longing for a play.
Look! there’s a sunbeam, through a sky-crack poking;
Quick! get your shoes off, as still as still can be;
Slip out the back door, Mother isn’t looking,
Steal down the wood-road, before she turns to see.
Great jolly puddles, round and wet and gleaming—
Here’s a still clear one, grassy, cool and sweet;
But we love the brown ones, and in we paddle, screaming,
Laughing, while the soft mud oozes ’round our feet.
Trees shake their wet cloaks, and on us falls a shower;
We laugh the louder, as down the road we run.
See! there’s a cowslip, and here’s a fairies’ bower,
All made of violets, nodding to the sun.
Down in the East, where we still can hear the thunder,
Over the cloud bends a misty, shining Bow.
Right at the foot of it are hidden many wonders,
If we can get there before the colors go.
Run, hand in hand, then, hair all a-dripping,
Bare feet splashing thro’ the puddles as we fly.
Soft shines the Rainbow, as toward it we are tripping;
The green earth is waving and smiling to the sky.