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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE VOICE OF THE RAIN by WALT WHITMAN

Poet Analysis

First Line: AND WHO ART THOU? SAID I TO THE SOFT-FALLING SHOWER
Last Line: RECK'D OR UNRECK'D, DULY WITH LOVE RETURNS.)
Subject(s): RAIN; RIVERS;

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, and yet 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.)



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