The Voice of the Rain
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, andyet the same,I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,and make pure and beautify it;(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)
Words in this poem
- altogether adv.
- All together; conjointly. [OE. altogedere; al all + togedere together. See Together.]
- lave v. t.
- To lade, dip, or pour out. [OE. laven. See Lavish.]
- unborn a.
- Not born; no yet brought into life; being still to appear; future.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Voice of the Rain is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, The Voice of the Rain, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/the-voice-of-the-rain.html, id L04104.
Form and metre
The Voice of the Rain is 12 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 79% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.4 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, | 13 | ·········/˘/˘ |
| Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: | 14 | ·······/˘··˘/˘ |
| I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, | 19 | ˘/˘··˘/˘˘······/˘˘· |
| Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, and | 15 | /˘·/˘·/˘··˘/˘·· |
| yet the same, | 3 | ··· |
| I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, | 15 | ·˘/·······/˘··· |
| And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; | 16 | ··········/˘/˘// |
| And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, | 18 | ·˘/˘···········/˘˘ |
| and make pure and beautify it; | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering, | 17 | ··/˘˘·········/˘˘ |
| Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.) | 10 | ····/˘··˘/ |
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.