The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth, + 

And man’s in danger. + 

O that my mother at my birth + 

Had borne a stranger! + 

The flooded ground is all around. + 

The depth uncommon. + 

How blest I’d be if only she + 

Had borne a salmon! + 

If still denied the solar glow + 

’Twere bliss ecstatic + 

To be amphibious⁠—but O, + 

To be aquatic! + 

We’re worms, men say, o’ the dust, and they + 

That faith are firm of. + 

O, then, be just: show me some dust + 

To be a worm of. + 

The pines are chanting overhead + 

A psalm uncheering. + 

It’s O, to have been for ages dead + 

And hard of hearing! + 

Restore, ye Pow’rs, the last bright hours + 

The dial reckoned; + 

’Twas in the time of Egypt’s prime⁠— + 

Rameses II. + 