Famous Raining Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Raining poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous raining poems. These examples illustrate what a famous raining poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Song Of Despair

by Pablo Neruda
 The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song...Read more of this...

On Her 'Rooftop-Terrace'

by Majeed Amjad
Here she comes, onto her “rooftop-terrace,” smiling

With a muted message in her fleeting glance !

 

This hazy air tinged with dusky reflections,

This desolate path … deserted lane … quiet evening,

The low wall of a house at the street corner,

Upon which is gently laid

A diffuse and silent spell !

 

This rooftop-terrace … familiar

With the sound of someone’s soft step,

This secluded place...Read more of this...

The Lady of Shalott

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
ON either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 
To many-tower'd Camelot; 5 
And up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow 
Round an island there below, 
The island of Shalott. 

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 10 
Little breezes...Read more of this...

At the California Institute of Technology

by Richard Brautigan
 I don't care how God-damn smart
these guys are: I'm bored.

It's been raining like hell all day long
and there's nothing to do.

Written January 24, 1967
while poet-in-residence at
the California Institute of 
Technology....Read more of this...

Its Raining In Love

by Richard Brautigan
 I don't know what it is,
 but I distrust myself
 when I start to like a girl
 a lot.

 It makes me nervous.
 I don't say the right things
 or perhaps I start
 to examine,
 evaluate,
 compute
 what I am saying.

 If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
 and she says, "I don't know,"
 I start...Read more of this...

The Horror of the Rain

by Jean Delville
Implacably, dismally, prophetically,
It is raining, interminable tears of rain, it rains
Death upon the dismal city, long bereaved of sun.
It rains annihilation, immensely, upon my sleep
and my tormented dreams and, in the night, it rains

implacably, dismally, prophetically?

Oh! the secret sorrow of the Night weeps
Upon the pale wakefulness of my pensive mind.
Upon the slab of my brow, with funereal sobs,
it is raining...Read more of this...

Block City

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea, 
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels...Read more of this...

Morning Worship

by Mark Van Doren
 I wake and hearing it raining.
Were I dead, what would I give
Lazily to lie here,
Like this, and live?

Or better yet: birdsong,
Brightening and spreading --
How far would I come then
To be at the world's wedding?

Now that I lie, though,
Listening, living,
(Oh, but not forever,
Oh, end arriving)

How shall I praise them:
All the sweet beings
Eternally that outlive
Me and my dying?

Mountains, I mean; wind,...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

The house where I was born (02)

by Yves Bonnefoy
  I woke up, it was the house where I was born.
It was raining softly in all the rooms,
I went from one to another, looking at
The water that shone on the mirrors
Piled up everywhere, some broken or even
Pushed between the furniture and the walls.
It was from these reflections that sometimes a face
Would emerge, laughing, of a gentleness
That was different...Read more of this...

Up The Country

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of...Read more of this...

Spring in the South

by Henry Van Dyke
 Now in the oak the sap of life is welling,
Tho' to the bough the rusty leafage clings;
Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling,
See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings;
Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying,
Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass,
Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying,--
Who has waked the birds up? What has come to pass?

Last year's cotton-plants,...Read more of this...

To The Road

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Cool is the wind, for the summer is waning,
Who 's for the road?
Sun-flecked and soft, where the dead leaves are raining,
Who 's for the road?
Knapsack and alpenstock press hand and shoulder,
Prick of the brier and roll of the boulder;[Pg 164]
This be your lot till the season grow older;
Who 's for the road?
Up and away in the hush of...Read more of this...

Deaths And Entrances

by Dylan Thomas
 On almost the incendiary eve
 Of several near deaths,
When one at the great least of your best loved
 And always known must leave
Lions and fires of his flying breath,
 Of your immortal friends
Who'd raise the organs of the counted dust
 To shoot and sing your praise,
One who called deepest down shall hold his peace
 That cannot sink or cease
...Read more of this...

Poem (In the morning when it was raining)

by Delmore Schwartz
 In the morning, when it was raining,
Then the birds were hectic and loudy;
Through all the reign is fall's entertaining;
Their singing was erratic and full of disorder:
They did not remember the summer blue
Or the orange of June. They did not think at all
Of the great red and bursting ball
Of the kingly sun's terror and tempest, blazing,
Once the slanting rain threw...Read more of this...

Sonnet LV: My Fair If Thou Wilt

by Michael Drayton
 My Fair, if thou wilt register my love, 
A world of volumes shall thereof arise; 
Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shalt prove 
A second flood, down-raining from mine eyes. 
Note by my sighs, and thine eyes shall behold 
The sunbeams smother'd with immortal smoke; 
And if by thee my prayers may be enroll'd, 
They Heav'n and Earth to...Read more of this...

Little Exercise

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily
like a dog looking for a place to sleep in,
listen to it growling. 

Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys
lying out there unresponsive to the lightning
in dark, coarse-fibred families, 

where occasionally a heron may undo his head,
shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment
when the surrounding water shines. 

Think of...Read more of this...

Died of Wounds

by Siegfried Sassoon
 His wet white face and miserable eyes 
Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: 
But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell 
His troubled voice: he did the business well. 

The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining 
And calling out for ‘Dickie’. ‘Curse the Wood! 
‘It’s time to go. O Christ, and what’s the...Read more of this...

I Do I Will I Have

by Ogden Nash
 How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't...Read more of this...

Three HaPence a Foot

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you an old-fashioned story 
That Grandfather used to relate, 
Of a joiner and building contractor; 
'Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite.

In a shop on the banks of the Irwell, 
Old Sam used to follow 'is trade, 
In a place you'll have 'eard of, called Bury; 
You know, where black puddings is made.

One day, Sam were filling a...Read more of this...

The Clasp

by Sharon Olds
 She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved firstborn,...Read more of this...

Prayer In Bad Weather

by Charles Bukowski
 by God, I don't know what to
do.
they're so nice to have around.
they have a way of playing with
the balls
and looking at the cock very
seriously
turning it
tweeking it
examining each part
as their long hair falls on
your belly.
it's not the fucking and sucking
alone that reaches into a man
and softens him, it's the extras,
it's all the extras.
now it's raining tonight
and there's nobody
they are elsewhere
examining...Read more of this...

Borderland

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track -- 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes...Read more of this...

June Dreams In January

by Sidney Lanier
 "So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon
With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;

"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale
And then as red as any virgin's lips.

"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,
-- Faint Odor from the day-flower's...Read more of this...

We to Sigh Instead of Sing

by James Whitcomb Riley
 "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...Read more of this...

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