“Rain and Rain! and rain and rain!”
Yesterday we muttered
Grimly as the grim refrain
That the thunders uttered:
All the heavens under cloud —
All the sunshine sleeping;
All the grasses limply bowed
With their weight of weeping.

Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!
Never end of sighing;
Rain and rain for our reply —
Hopes half-drowned and dying;
Peering through the window-pane,
Naught but endless raining —
Endless sighing, and, as vain,
Endlessly conmplaining.

Shine and shine! and shine and shine!
Ah! to-day the splendor!–
All this glory yours and mine —
God! but God is tender!
We to sigh instead of sing,
Yesterday in sorrow,
While the lord was fashioning
This for our To-morrow!

Analysis, meaning and summary of James Whitcomb Riley's poem We to Sigh Instead of Sing

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