Rain
Rain
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.
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.
Publication Start Year
1917
Publication Notes
"Edward Eastaway, Poems (London: Selwyn and Blount, Oct. 10, 1917)
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.