That The Rain Rains On
Robert Kirkland Kernighan 1854 (Canada) – 1926
I stand by the grave the old-time grave
In the drift of the falling rain ;
My heart goes back to an afternoon
In the spring of life again,
When mother was carried the churchyard thro',
When April was dead and gone ;
And a voice said ' Happy, happy, happy,
Happy the corpse that the rain rains on.'
My heart went back much further yet,
To a time when mother and I
Stood out on the wet and the shining grass,
While above was the clearing sky ;
She plucked a lilac all drooping wet
And dark with its perfume on,
' The lilac is sweet the lilac is sweet,
The lilac is sweet that the rain rains on.'
Boy as I was when mother died,
I stole thro' the creeping wet,
And placed in her dear white hands a bunch
Of lilacs and mignonette ;
And the rain fell soft in the May morn light
Her glistening coffin on ;
And the voice said ' Happy, happy, happy,
Happy tbe corpse that the rain rains on.'
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 90 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X XX XX XA B C DX DC BX B X CX CX BA B |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 890 |
Words | 178 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1 |
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"That The Rain Rains On" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/43438/that-the-rain-rains-on>.
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