Famous Rains Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rains poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rains poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rains poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Amy Lowell
The stars hang thick in the apple tree,
The south wind smells of the pungent sea,
Gold tulip cups are heavy with dew.
The night's for you, Sweetheart, for you!
Starfire rains from the vaulted blue.
Listen! The dancing of unseen leaves.
A drowsy swallow stirs in the eaves.
Only a maiden is sorrowing.
'T is night and spring, Sweetheart, and spring!
Starfire lights your heart's blossoming.
In the...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Though giant rains put out the sun,
Here stand I for a sign.
Though earth be filled with waters dark,
My cup is filled with wine.
Tell to the trembling priests that here
Under the deluge rod,
One nameless, tattered, broken man
Stood up, and drank to God.
Sun has been where the rain is now,
Bees in the...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The track that led to Carmody's is choked and overgrown,
The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own;
The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know
When first we rode to Carmody's, a score of years ago.
The shearing shed at Carmody's was slab and stringybark,
The press was just a...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she bless'd her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toil'd through winds and rains,
Till William, at length, in sadness said,
"We must seek our fortune on other plains;" --
Then, sighing, she left her...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I SHALL cry God to give me a broken foot.
I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose.
I shall take the last and the worst.
I shall be eaten by gray creepers in a bunkhouse where no runners of the sun come and no dogs live.
And yet—of all “and yets” this is the bronze strongest—
I shall keep one thing...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.
The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
SUDDENLY, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,
Like lightning it le’pt forth, half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags—its hands tight to the throats of kings.
O hope and faith!
O aching close of exiled patriots’ lives!
O many a sicken’d heart!
Turn back unto this day, and make yourselves...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
19 years old and going nowhere,
I got a ride to Bessemer and walked
the night road toward Birmingham
passing dark groups of men cursing
the end of a week like every week.
Out of town I found a small grove
of trees, high narrow pines, and I
sat back against the trunk of one
as the first rains...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
The spot is flaked with mist, that fills,
Thickening into rolls more dank,
The thresholds and the window-sills,
And smokes on every bank.
The river stagnates, pestilent
With carrion by the current sent
This way and that—and yonder lies
The moon, just like a woman dead,
That they have smothered overhead,
Deep in the skies.
In a few boats alone there gleam
Lamps that light up and magnify
The backs, bent over...Read more of this...
by
R S Thomas
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a...Read more of this...
by
Charles Sorley
We burrowed night and day with tools of lead,
Heaped the bank up and cast it in a ring
And hurled the earth above. And Caesar said,
“Why, it is excellent. I like the thing.”
We, who are dead,
Made it, and wrought, and Caesar liked the thing.
And here we strove, and here we felt each vein
Ice-bound, each limb fast-frozen, all night long.
And here...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Night, dim night, and it rains, my love, it rains,
(Art thou dreaming of me, I wonder)
The trees are sad, and the wind complains,
Outside the rolling of the thunder,
And the beat against the panes.
Heart, my heart, thou art mournful in the rain,
(Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?)
My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain?
My love goes surging like a river,
Shall its...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
'Nd uv the many features Casey managed to import
The most important wuz a Steenway gran' pianny-fort,
An' bein' there wuz nobody could play upon the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone -
When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;
Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;
For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
The river rises
and the rains keep coming.
My Papa says
it can't flood for
the water can run
away as fast as
it comes down. I believe
him because he's Papa
and because I'm afraid
ofwater I know I can't stop.
All day in school I
see the windows darken,
and hearing the steady drum
of rain, I...Read more of this...
by
Pritish Nandy
When you first came, quiet as the rain that never fell,
in the sunlight that never shone, I whispered words
I had never known and now shall never forget. These
words have grown into secret songs. We have known, and
loved, and shared what only lovers can share in lyric
guilt. There can be nothing simpler than this love of
ours, nothing truer when this darkness...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain's sweet might.
Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!
And how the odorous limes are blown!
Stormy Love's abroad, and keeps
Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps.
Not a blink shall burn to-night...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
Do not accept these rains that come too late.
Better to linger. Make your pain
An image of the desert. Say it's said
And do not look to the west. Refuse
To surrender. Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
From tears. And do not learn from
Experience. Take as an example my youth,
My return late at...Read more of this...
by
Michael Ondaatje
Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation
surround us tock
tock like Go tablets
Everyone has learned
to move carefully
'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law
In the midst of love for you
my wife's suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough
--so I fear
how anything...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Here in my mountain home,
On rugged hills and steep,
I sit and watch you come,
O Riverinia Sheep!
You come from the fertile plains
Where saltbush (sometimes) grows,
And flats that (when it rains)
Will blossom like the rose.
But when the summer sun
Gleams down like burnished brass,
You have to leave your run
And hustle off...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt....Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?
Shall I make a gentle song
Here in my firelit study,
When outside the winds blow strong
And the lanes are muddy?
With old wine and drowsy meats
Am I to fill my belly?
Shall I glutton here with Keats?
Shall I drink with...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
The stone says "Coors"
The gay carpet says "Camels"
Spears of dried grass
The little sticks the children gathered
The leaves the wind gathered
The cat did not kill him
The dog did not, not the trap
Or lightning, or the rain's anger
The tree's claws
The black teeth of the moon
The sun drilled over and over
Dusk...Read more of this...
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