Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
Rain
1Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
2On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
3Remembering again that I shall die
4And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
5For washing me cleaner than I have been
6Since I was born into this solitude.
7Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
8But here I pray that none whom once I loved
9Is dying to-night or lying still awake
10Solitary, listening to the rain,
11Either in pain or thus in sympathy
12Helpless among the living and the dead,
13Like a cold water among broken reeds,
14Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
15Like me who have no love which this wild rain
16Has not dissolved except the love of death,
17If love it be towards what is perfect and
18Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Edward Thomas, Collected Poems, with a Foreword by Walter de la Mare (London: Selwyn and Blount, 1920): 73. PR 6039 H55A17 1920 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
10
October
1917
Publication date note: "Edward Eastaway, Poems (London: Selwyn and Blount, Oct. 10, 1917)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1999.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/6
Composition date:
7
January
1916
Composition date note: (R. George Thomas, p. 258)
Form note: unrhyming pentameter lines
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