Analysis of The Rain

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



The rain! the rain! the rain!
It gushed from the skies and streamed
Like awful tears; and the sick man thought
How pitiful it seemed!
And he turned his face away,
And stared at the wall again,
His hopes nigh dead and his heart worn out.
O the rain! the rain! the rain!

The rain! the rain! the rain!
And the broad stream brimmed the shores;
And ever the river crept over the reeds
And the roots of the sycamores:
A corpse swirled by in a drift
Where the boat had snapt its chain--
And a hoarse-voiced mother shrieked and raved.
O the rain! the rain! the rain!

The rain! the rain! the rain!--
Pouring, with never a pause,
Over the fields and the green byways--
How beautiful it was!
And the new-made man and wife
Stood at the window-pane
Like two glad children kept from school.--
O the rain! the rain! the rain!


Scheme AbxbxxxA AcxcxaxA AxxxxaxA
Poetic Form
Metre 010101 1110101 110100111 110011 0111101 0110101 111101111 1010101 010101 0011101 01001011001 001101 0111001 1011111 001110101 1010101 010101 1011001 10010011 110011 0011101 110101 11110111 1010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 804
Words 161
Sentences 27
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 205
Words per stanza (avg) 51
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

48 sec read
94

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

All James Whitcomb Riley poems | James Whitcomb Riley Books

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