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 Views
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"The Rain" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21104/the-rain>.
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