The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and drearyIt rains, and the wind is never weary;The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,But at every gust the dead leaves fall,And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;It rains, and the wind is never weary;My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;Thy fate is the common fate of all,Into each life some rain must fall,Some days must be dark and dreary.
Words in this poem
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Rainy Day is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Rainy Day, in A Psalm of Life, and Other Poems (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/the-rainy-day.html, id L17500.
Form and metre
The Rainy Day is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas; the stanza is the Limerick. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other limericks, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBA drearyA · wearyA · wallB · fallB · drearyA
- 2 AABBA drearyA · wearyA · pastB · blastB · drearyA
- 3 AABB- repiningA · shiningA · allB · fallB · dreary
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The day is cold, and dark, and dreary | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| It rains, and the wind is never weary; | 10 | ······/˘/˘ |
| The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| But at every gust the dead leaves fall, | 10 | ··/˘˘····· |
| And the day is dark and dreary. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| It rains, and the wind is never weary; | 10 | ······/˘/˘ |
| My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, | 10 | ·········· |
| And the days are dark and dreary. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; | 9 | ········· |
| Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Thy fate is the common fate of all, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Into each life some rain must fall, | 8 | ········ |
| Some days must be dark and dreary. | 8 | ······/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.