Rainy Night
Ghosts of all my lovely sins,Who attend too well my pillow,Gay the wanton rain begins;Hide the limp and tearful willow,
Turn aside your eyes and ears,Trail away your robes of sorrow.You shall have my further years,--You shall walk with me to-morrow.
I am sister to the rain;Fey and sudden and unholy,Petulant at the windowpane,Quickly lost, remembered slowly.
I have lived with shades, a shade;I am hung with graveyard flowers.Let me be to-night arrayedIn the silver of the showers.
Every fragile thing shall rust;When another April passesI may be a furry dust,Sifting through the brittle grasses.
All sweet sins shall be forgotWho will live to tell their siring?Hear me now, nor let me rotWistful still, and still aspiring.
Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;I am frail, be you forgiving.See you not that I have needTo be living with the living?
Sail, to-night, the Styx's breast;Glide among the dim processionsOf the exquisite unblest.Spirits of my shared transgressions.
Roam with young Persephone,Plucking poppies for your slumber...With the morrow, there shall beOne more wraith among your number.
Words in this poem
- tearful a.
- Abounding with tears; weeping; shedding tears; as, tearful eyes.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- unholy a.
- Not holy; unhallowed; not consecrated; hence, profane; wicked; impious.
- petulant a.
- Forward; pert; insolent; wanton. Burton. [L. petulans, -antis, prop., making slight attacks upon, from a lost dim. of petere to fall upon, to attack: cf. F. pétulant. See Petition.]
- graveyard n.
- A yard or inclosure for the interment of the dead; a cemetery.
- furry a.
- Covered with fur; dressed in fur. [From Fur.]
- wistful a.
- Longing; wishful; desirous. [For wishful; perhaps influenced by wistly, which is probably corrupted from OE. wisly certainly (from Icel. viss certain, akin to E. wit). See Wish.]
- aspiring a.
- That aspires; as, an Aspiring mind.
- forgiving a.
- Disposed to forgive; inclined to overlook offenses; mild; merciful; compassionate; placable; as, a forgiving temper.
- unblest a.
- Not blest; excluded from benediction; hence, accursed; wretched. [Pref. un- not + blessed, blest.]
- wraith n.
- An apparition of a person in his exact likeness, seen before death, or a little after; hence, an apparition; a specter; a vision; an unreal image. [Scot. wraith, warth; probably originally, a guardian angel, from Icel. vörthr a warden, guardian, akin to E. ward. See Ward a guard.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rainy Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enough Rope: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #68353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, Rainy Night, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/rainy-night.html, id L27337.
Form and metre
Rainy Night is 36 lines in 9 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 ABAB sinsA · pillowB · beginsA · willowB
- 2 ABAB earsA · sorrowB · yearsA · morrowB
- 3 ABAB rainA · unholyB · windowpaneA · slowlyB
- 4 ABAB shadeA · flowersB · arrayedA · showersB
- 5 ABAB rustA · passesB · dustA · grassesB
- 6 ABAB forgotA · siringB · rotA · aspiringB
- 7 ABAB heedA · forgivingB · needA · livingB
- 8 ABAB breastA · processionsB · unblestA · transgressionsB
- 9 ABAB persephoneA · slumberB · beA · numberB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ghosts of all my lovely sins, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Who attend too well my pillow, | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| Gay the wanton rain begins; | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Hide the limp and tearful willow, | 8 | ····/˘/· |
| Turn aside your eyes and ears, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Trail away your robes of sorrow. | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| You shall have my further years,-- | 7 | ····/˘· |
| You shall walk with me to-morrow. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| I am sister to the rain; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Fey and sudden and unholy, | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| Petulant at the windowpane, | 8 | /˘˘··/˘· |
| Quickly lost, remembered slowly. | 8 | /˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| I have lived with shades, a shade; | 8 | ···˘···· |
| I am hung with graveyard flowers. | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| Let me be to-night arrayed | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| In the silver of the showers. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Every fragile thing shall rust; | 8 | /˘˘/˘··· |
| When another April passes | 8 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| I may be a furry dust, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Sifting through the brittle grasses. | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| All sweet sins shall be forgot | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Who will live to tell their siring? | 8 | ········ |
| Hear me now, nor let me rot | 7 | ······· |
| Wistful still, and still aspiring. | 8 | /˘···˘/˘ |
| Ghosts of dear temptations, heed; | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| I am frail, be you forgiving. | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| See you not that I have need | 7 | ······· |
| To be living with the living? | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Sail, to-night, the Styx's breast; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Glide among the dim processions | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Of the exquisite unblest. | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| Spirits of my shared transgressions. | 8 | /˘···˘/˘ |
| Roam with young Persephone, | 6 | ······ |
| Plucking poppies for your slumber... | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| With the morrow, there shall be | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| One more wraith among your number. | 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.