IN the lone of night by the pattering tree I sat alone with Poetry — With Poetry, my old shy friend, And his tenuous shadow seemed to blend — Beyond the lampshine on the sill — With the mammoth shadow of the hill, And his breath fell soft on the pool-dark pane With the murmurous, murmuring muffled hoof Of the rain, the rain The rain on the roof. In the vast of night and its vacancy I prayed aloud to Poetry, And his luminous eyes grew large and dim As my heart-pulse quickened to question him; For out of that rumbling rhymeless rune He only might know, by a sense atune, To unravel the anguish, and render vain The remorseless will that wove the woof Of the rain, the rain The rain on the roof. So I cried: "What mute conspiracy Have you made with the night, O Poetry? Lover and friend of my warm doorway, Do you crouch there too on the storm-soaked clay? Did you creep indoors when that gust of damp Raised the dead moon-moths round my lamp And the wan flame guttered? — Hark, again! Do @3you@1 ride there — so close, so aloof — With the rain, the rain The rain on the roof? "Ah, what of the rapture and melody We might have wrought, dear Poetry! Imagined tower and dream-built shrine, Must they crumble in dark like this pale lampshine? Our dawn-flecked meadows lyric-shrill, Shall they lie as dumb as the gloom-drenched hill? Our song-voiced lovers! — Shall none remain?" — Under the galloping, gusty hoof Answered the rain, rain Rain on the roof. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SYMPHONIC STUDIES (AFTER ROBERT SCHUMANN) by EMMA LAZARUS AT THE CHURCH DOOR by GEORGE SANTAYANA ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE by WILLIAM BLAKE THIRD BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 23 by THOMAS CAMPION A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS IN PRAISE OF ASTRAEA by MARY SIDNEY HERBERT GOD'S GRANDEUR by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS |