Monday's Poetry: "Autumn Rain"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

It has been raining the past several days here in the Ozarks, and much of it has been a steady, heavy rainfall.    The farmers know that rain is a good thing, and it is a comfort of sorts to face the end of the year will full to overflowing ponds and streams.

But enough already!

A couple of days ago we had nearly four inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period, and with the rain came a startling taste of cold weather.  Yesterday evening the sun came out for about an hour, and I was so hopeful for a nice day today.  Rosie and I were up before dawn taking out the trash, and the air was warm.   My anticipation for a nice day was soaring!

But the rains came.  Oh my, did they come!  My rain gauge rose 2 inches in just a couple of hours - and that warm air is, of course, meteorological history.  And just to rub salt in the wound, the trash man is off celebrating Columbus Day, and I will have to be up before daylight again tomorrow carting my refuse to the road - and it will probably be raining!

Here is what 19th century poet Mary T. Lathrap thought of the rains in autumn:

Autumn Rain

by Mary T. Lathrap

There’s a sad, sad voice in the autumn rain,

Mournful rain;

As it beateth slowly down against the pane,

And the wind sings by with a conscious breath,

And seems like a messenger whispering death,

As the flowers bend with a drooping eye –

Bend and die.

What gives such a sadness unto the rain?

Autumn rain;

For it sobs like a human heart in pain,

Does it know its drops with a chilly tread

Lie cold on the beauty that now is dead?

Does it know the beautiful must decay?

Passing away.

Sure the summer rain had a merry tone,

A laughing tone;

Its patter made a melody all its own,

Yes, all its own;

The flowers looked up when it came from the skies,

And the drops for mischief fell right in their eyes,

And sparkled in brightness like mimic tears,

Joyful tears.

Then tell me, why is it this autumn rain,

Mournful rain,

Chills my very heart as it sweeps the pane?

Dripping pane.

Is it that its sighs o’er a summer fled,

O’er the graves where more than flowers lie dead;

Is it that memory lendeth a strain

To the sobbing rain?

O where are the hopes of the bright spring tide?

Sweet spring tide.

With the summer blossoms they too have died,

Yes, they have died.

They have fled away;  will their bloom come back?

Will they bless again as I tread life’s track?

Or, by and by on some other shore

Bloom evermore?

Sob on, - it is well, -  O passionate rain;

“Tis well, O rain,

Tho’ the flowers now faded may bloom again,

Will bloom again;

Some things that have died with the summer’s light,

Some things that have fled with the summer’s flight,

Will never, no, never, come back again,

Sob on, O rain!