The rains are finally here in Mumbai. It’s my favourite season! Sharing with you one of my most favourite poems on rain. This one titled as “How beautiful is the rain” by famous American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is a poem that perfectly captures the moment when the first of the showers arrive, how the rain impacts everything and everyone.
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 commotion;
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.
- H W Longfellow
The poem is full of rhyme and grace, yet not at all “poetic”. The scenarios are quite relatable. And that’s what I think makes this poem very real in all senses. Do you guys have any favourites? Comment away…let’s compare notes 😛
© 2019 Ashwini Nawathe, Kaleidoscope of My Life
All Rights Reserved
Well written 👍
Thanks.
Summer increases beauty of rain
How true. The whole universe has its Yin-Yan. To experience true happiness you must have gone through sadness. Just like to be happy of the rain you must have endured the dry summers.
Yes, right. We all are in the mixture of all type of feelings 😃😃
Absolutely! 🙂
Hey u reminded me of my memory lane of school days. This poem existed in our fourth standard text book. oh, how beautiful were those days. I still remember the rhyming coming from my teacher lips
That’s amazing. I don’t remember learning this poem in school. But yes so many poems taught by so many teachers… Used to love them 🙂