Mumbai Rains  

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 😛

 

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