Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.


Edward Thomas



I'm alone today and watching the rain fall outside the library window, silently; it's not heavy enough even to be wild and beautiful. I'm looking out over Radcliffe Square, and the tourists under their umbrellas are looking in at me. I wonder if they're wondering what I'm doing. The answer would undoubtedly disappoint them: worrying about being unable to write.

It's nice of the weather to correlate with my mood so perfectly; it's the opposite of this experience, the last time Edward Thomas featured on this blog. (He obviously had a thing about cold rivers.)