English Poems Index
How Beautiful is the Rain! :
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
The sick man from his chamber
Looks at the twisted brooks;
He can feel the cool
Breath of each little pool;
His fevered brain
Grows calm again,
And he breathes a blessing on the rain.
From the neighbouring school
Come the boys,
With more than their wonted noise
And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic fleets,
Till the treacherous pool
Engulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.
In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,
Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide
Stretches the plain,
To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!
In the furrowed land
The toilsome and patient oxen stand:
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale
The clover-scented gale,
And the vapours that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil.
For this rest in the furrow after toil
Their large and lustrous eyes
Seem to thank the Lord,
More than man's spoken word.
N ear at hand,
From under the sheltering trees,
The farmer sees
His pastures, and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops
To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.
He counts it as no sin
That he sees therein
Only his own thrift and gain.
By H.W Longfellow
About The Poet :
How beautiful is the rain was written by a very famous American poet called Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who lived from 1807 to 1882. When Longfellow was thirteen years old he began to publish his own poems. Later on, when he finished school and college, he became a professor of Modern Languages at the age of twenty-two. Seven years later, in 1836, he became a professor at Harvard. In 1854 Longfellow gave up his job and devoted all his time to writing poetry. He wrote so much poetry that a number of critics point out this led to a lowering of the general level of his work.
This poem shows Longfellow's great gift of being able to write melodious poetry. This poem is really a song of praise. It describes how the rain falls after a hot day in the summer and how various people welcome it. The poem is full of rhythm and beauty.
Words to Know :
Chamber : room
Commotion : bustle and confusion
Dilated : opened wide
Engulfs : swallows up
Lustrous : shining
Mimic : imitation, the children are sailing boats made of paper or sticks
Tawny : brownish-yellow
Therein : in that
Thrift : prosperity (the farmer sees a way of thriving)
Toilsome : full of work, laborious
Treacherous : deceptive, not to be trusted
Turbulent : disturbed and in commotion
Vapours : moisture (with the smell of the earth after the rain)
Wonted : usual
Yoke-encumbered : weighed down and hampered by a yoke (the wooden cross-piece fastened over necks of oxen)
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