The Rain

As reeled from an exhaustless bobbin, the long rain,
Interminably through the long gray day,
Lines the green window pane
With its long threads of gray,
The reeled, exhaustless rain,
The long rain,
The rain.

It has been ravelling out, since last sunset,
Rags hanging soft and low
From sulky skies of jet.
Unravelling, patient, slow,
Upon the roads, since last sunset,
On roads and streets,
Continual sheets.

Along the leagues that wind
Through quiet suburbs to the fields behind,
Along the roads interminably bending,
In funeral procession, drenched, resigned,
Toiling, bathed in sweat and steam,
Vehicles with tilted coverings are wending;
In ruts so regular,
And parallel so far
By night to join the firmament they seem,
The water drips hour after hour,
The spouts gush, and the trees shower,
With long rain wet,
With rain tenacious yet.

Rivers o'er rotten dikes are brimming
Upon the meadows where drowned hay is swimming;
The wind is whipping walnut trees and alders,
And big black oxen wading stand
Deep in the water of the polders,
And bellow at the writhen sky;
And evening is at hand,
Bringing its shadows to enfold the plain, and lie
Clustered at the washed tree's root;
And ever falls the rain,
The long rain,
As fine and dense as soot.

The long rain,
The long rain falls afresh;
And its identic thread
Weaves mesh by mesh
A raiment making naked shred by shred
The cottages and farmyards gray
Of hamlets crumbling fast away;
A bunch of linen rags that hang down sick
Upon a loosely planted stick;
Here a blue dovecote to the roof that cleaves;
Sinister window panes
Plastered with paper rank with mildew stains;
Dwellings whose regular eves
Form crosses on their gable ends of stone;
Uniform, melancholy mills,
Standing like horns upon their hills;
Chapels, and spires with ivy overgrown;
The rain
The long rain
Winter-long beneath them burrows.

The rain, in lines,
The long, gray rain untwines
Its watery tresses o'er its furrows,
The long rain
Of countries old,
Torpid, eternally unrolled.