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Quotations about Rain



Welcome to my page of quotations about lovely, wonderful, life-giving rain!   SEE ALSO:  CLOUDS RAINBOWS STORMS THUNDERSTORMS MONSOON STORMS SKY SUN WEATHER BAD WEATHER SNOW WIND NATURE  –Terri


But I am sure that it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness. There is, after all, a selective wisdom that sees the desirability of taking the showers as they come. ~Adeline Knapp, This Then Is Upland Pastures, Being Some Out-door Essays Dealing with the Beautiful Things that the Spring and Summer Bring, 1897


...rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky. ~Rumi, as interpreted by Coleman Barks


The rain is gentle;
      It brings to me
A transcendental
      Ecstasy.
~Arthur Upson, "Praise of Rain," At the Sign of the Harp, 1900


There's an element of suspense in the air. The air is charged and dense... There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down. ~Don DeLillo, "The Desert," The Names, 1982


Earth and rain — dust and desire — what mingled odor of these is not sweet? ~Virginia Garland, "The Rain," in Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, 1908


And all was silent as before, —
All silent save the dripping rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn. — The Second Day, Book First, "Prelude," 1872


It rained wildly, desperately, as though the sky had something to prove. ~Abby Geni, The Lightkeepers, 2016


I ran into the street barefoot and danced with my mouth open. ~Barbara Kingsolver, "Making Peace," 1998  [her first experience with the rains of an Arizona summer storm, in the late 1970s –tg]


The smell of rain was an excitement of the blood. She breathed in the fragrance of wet earth. Lupe felt like Cleopatra, her pores drinking in the gladness of nature, at one with sky and earth. ~Estela Portillo Trambley, "Rain of Scorpions," 1975


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 arrayed
      In the silver of the showers.
~Dorothy Parker, "Rainy Night," 1925


Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain
And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled.
I have so loved the rain that I would hold
Last in my ears its friendly, dim refrain...
~Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), "Testament"


The squadron of clouds cast off their lashings, and one after another, in a long line, sailed up towards the north. The procession lasted a long while, and the earth could be felt swelling up with all those rains and with the reawakened life of the grass. ~Jean Giono (1895–1970), Regain, 1930, translated from the French by Henri Fluchè and Geoffrey Myers, Harvest, 1939


There's an element of suspense in the air. The air is charged and dense... There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down. ~Don DeLillo, "The Desert," The Names, 1982


It was raining tonight, a soft summer rain that fell steadily on the leaves of the lilac bush and on the roof of his house with a silver patter that sounded as if the sky were singing. ~Frances Frost, Little Fox, 1952


These days are after
      Old ways of years —
Within is laughter,
      Without are tears;
Within is greeting,
      Without, the rain —
And hearts are beating
      Both sides the pane.
~Arthur Upson, "Praise of Rain," At the Sign of the Harp, 1900


The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. ~Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 1836–1837


Tell me how many beads there are
      In a silver chain
      Of evening rain,
Unravelled from the tumbling main...
~Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849), Torrismond; an Unfinished Drama


A subtle but palpable feeling surrounded the three of us, like the scent of creosote and cactus flowers hanging heavy in the air after a long-awaited desert shower. ~Linda Kohanov, "Does the Horse Have a Buddha Nature?," Riding Between the Worlds: Expanding Our Potential through the Way of the Horse, 2003


A man is getting old w'en he walks around a puddle instead of through it. ~R. C. Ferguson, 1940s


Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby...
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—
And I love the rain.
~Langston Hughes, "April Rain Song," 1921


This glorious silence is that open door into a clean, free clarity. Chucho listened to the silence and watched the water on mud puddles circling for an open way. The smell of rain is rich with life. ~Estela Portillo Trambley, "Pay the Criers," 1975


Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been...
~Edward Thomas (1878–1917), "Rain," 1916


The sound of the rain needs no translation. ~Morimoto-roshi


It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays a heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky... ~Muriel Spark, Territorial Rights, 1979


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to‑night, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply...
~Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)


Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. Beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. ~Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763–1825), as quoted in Adam Wooléver, Encyclopædia of Quotations, 1876


The wind calls like a spirit—
      The sea, like mystic song;
      But the falling rain is like a voice
      Murmuring all night long.
For the wind's way none may follow,
      The sea no man may bound;
      But the rain is gentle minister
      Between the skies and ground.
Rising, mist-clad and silent,
      From land and sea, it bears
      The offering of their fragrances,
      The perfume of their prayers.
~Charles Buxton Going, "Voice of the Rain," Star-Glow & Song, 1909


There are many things I do for amusement, but for happiness I like to gather up my memories and go for a walk in the rain. ~Robert Brault, 2014, rbrault.blogspot.com


...the world is mud-
luscious... and...
puddle-wonderful...
~E.E. Cummings (1894–1962), "Chansons Innocentes: I," Tulips and Chimneys, 1923


A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods. I always thought so myself; the Maine woods never seem so fresh and alive as in wet weather. Then all the needles on the evergreens wear a sheath of silver; ferns seem to have grown to almost tropical lushness and every leaf has its edging of crystal drops. ~Rachel Carson, "Help Your Child to Wonder," 1956


It is a lovely sight and good
To see rain falling in a wood.
The birds are silent, drunk with sound
Of raindrops kissing the green ground,
They sit with head tucked under wing
Too full of joy to dare to sing.
Flowers open mouths as wide I say
As baby blackbirds do in May;
While trees shake hands as grave and slow
As two old men I used to know,
And hold out smiling boughs to find
Whence comes this sweetest breath of wind.
But now the sun has come again
And he has chased away the rain.
The rain has gone beyond the hill,
But leaves are talking of it still.
~W. H. Arden, "Woods in Rain"


When the sun is out and the sky is high and bright, one feels that the world is a large place, belonging to many creatures. But when the sky shuts down and the world is close-wrapped in rain and drifting mist, it seems to grow smaller and more intimate. Instead of feeling the multitudinousness of the life of woods and fields, one feels its unity. We are brought together in the bonds of the rain — we and all the hidden creatures — we seem all in one room together. ~Elisabeth Woodbridge, "In the Rain," 1911


Little crystal balls of laughter,
Chasing all the boys and girls
Through the fields and we run after,
Resting on their cheeks and curls.
~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Spring," Ouina's Canoe, 1882  [Rain speaking —tg]


I looked out the window at the black clouds ahead of us. I opened the back window and smelled the rain. You could smell the rain in the desert even before a drop fell. I closed my eyes. I held my hand out and felt the first drop. It was like a kiss. The sky was kissing me. ~Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, 2012


Rain falls on the grass
And on my feet.
The drops are cool and round. The clover, oh
How sharp it greets me! And the trees bend low
Beneath the raindrops.
Faster
Louder
Rounder
Colder
The mad drops strike.
If we were older
We should be wise and shrink from rain.
But because we are young, the grass and I
Hold out our arms for its pain.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "A Day: IV: Rain," Youth Riding, 1919


Fog is rain that whispers. ~Olivia Dresher


The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing — a blanket — the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water. ~Douglas Coupland, Life After God, 1994


There are so many kinds of feet
      In rain … hard plodding ones that go
      Down through the world with thundering
      So heavy, weary, weighted woe.
There are glad footsteps of young girls
      Tiptoe and dancing merrily,
      And mothers' ceaseless, loving steps—
      Such gentle, tender steps they be.
There are the tiny lingering footsteps
      That patter softly overhead
      And ghostly ones so dim uncertain—
      The footsteps of the newly dead.
So many kinds of feet
      Go laughing, weeping in the rain;
      A thousand walk above me, beating
      Strange lives into a thin refrain.
~George Elliston, "Rain Phantasy," Bright World, 1927


Slowly at last the heavy clouds, charged with the welcome water, roll up from seaward; the air grows sultry and still; the creatures of the grove and jungle keep their coverts, as if expectant, like the surface of the soil; there is a hush over all things, as though nature herself were faint; till presently the lightning flashes and the thunder rattles, and down, as if really from heaven and from the hand of God, comes the thick and fresh rain. Then there rises from the ground a cool and penetrating aroma, the scent of the dry soil saturated... ~Daily Telegraph, 1872


Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains as no artist could ever do! ~Henry Ward Beecher, "The Mountain Farm to the Sea-side Farm," 1855


I threw my head back and let the rain pound against my cheeks. An unexpected happiness bubbled up in me, and I started to laugh. ~Cynthia Ellingsen, The Lighthouse Keeper, 2017


Rain makes me happy. It is clean and comforting. It represents new beginnings and freedom. I always felt it washed away pain, all the dirt, and stains... The rain makes me feel alive. ~Scarlett Jensen, The Angel with Burnt Wings, 2013


The rain falls gently down,
and slowly fills my cup.
This never would have happened,
If raindrops all fell up!
~Tom Batiuk, "Funky Winkerbean," 1979


Waiting for the end of the drought becomes an obsession... One day there will be a crackling, clean, creosote smell in the air and the ground will be charged and the hair on your arms will stand on end and then BOOM, you are thrillingly drenched. ~Barbara Kingsolver, "Making Peace," 1998


Sprinkle, drop, drop, patter, patter.
Here we come in joy again,
Out of clouds flying and flying,
Gladsome, gleeful spring-time rain...
Kissing all the buds and blossoms,
All the trees and blades of grass...
~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Spring," Ouina's Canoe, 1882  [Rain speaking —tg]


The Day is drear with Rain? Remember, then,
The Parched-up Spring that shall be full again.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Streams and Springs," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924


Today the rain came down as if it had forgotten how to stop. It cooled off the air to shivery coolness, it curtained the windows with silver streaks and played music on the roof... ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy Out of Time, 1958


The sun is rolling slowly
      Beneath the sluggish folds of sky-serpents,
      Coiling, uncoiling, blue black, sparked with fires.
Above the smell of scorching, oozing pinyon,
      The acrid smell of rain.
And now the showers
      Surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers:
      Shaking their rattles, stamping, chanting, roaring...
~John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), "Rain in the Desert" (Arizona Poems), 1915


And at last it comes. You hear a patter... you see a leaf here and there bob and blink about you; you feel a spot on your face, on your hand. And then the gracious rain comes, gathering its forces — steady, close, abundant. Lean out of window, and watch, and listen. How delicious!... the verandah beneath losing its scattered spots in a sheet of luminous wet; and, never pausing, the close, heavy, soft-rushing noise... ~John Richard Vernon, "The Beauty of Rain," 1863


Patter and pelt upon the roof,
The rain and hail together
Are dancing, as they clatter out
The rhyme of summer weather.
~Sara L. Vickers Oberholtzer, "The Summer Rain," Violet Lee, and Other Poems, 1873


My name is Margaret Ann Simon...
      I like long hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain and things that are pink.
      I hate pimples, baked potatoes, when my mother's mad and religious holidays...
~Judy Blume, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., 1970


Suddenly all the sky is hid
As with the shutting of a lid,
One by one great drops are falling
Doubtful and slow,
Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,
And the wind breathes low;
Slowly the circles widen on the river,
Widen and mingle, one and all;
Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,
Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.
~James Russell Lowell, "Summer Storm," 1839


I threw my head back and let the rain pound against my cheeks. An unexpected happiness bubbled up in me, and I started to laugh. ~Cynthia Ellingsen, The Lighthouse Keeper, 2017


I wake and hear it raining.
Were I dead, what would I give
Lazily to lie here,
Like this, and live?...
~Mark Van Doren, "Morning Worship," The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren, 1958


One day there will be a crackling, clean, creosote smell in the air and the ground will be charged and the hair on your arms will stand on end and then BOOM, you are thrillingly drenched. ~Barbara Kingsolver, "Making Peace," 1998


When at morn I saw the world in a dewdrop dress,
I knew what had happened.
The rain had kissed each flower lovingly.
So sweet and so loving was the kiss
That it shone like silver
And the air was filled with fragrance.
~Julia Cooley Altrocchi (1893–1972), "The Raindrops," 1902, The Poems of a Child, Being Poems Written Between the Ages of Six and Ten, 1904


But the true lover of rain... has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, as rain, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth. It refreshes and cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foliaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves. ~John Richard Vernon, "The Beauty of Rain," 1863


Hush! Still as death,
The tempest holds his breath
As from a sudden will;
The rain stops short, but from the eaves
You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,
All is so bodingly still...
~James Russell Lowell, "Summer Storm," 1839


Rain drops are to the buds and grass like little deeds of kindness to the weary heart. ~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "April Showers for My Flowers," Ouina's Canoe, 1882


It hain't no use to grumble and complane;
      It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice.—
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
      W'y, rain's my choice...
~James Whitcomb Riley, "Wet-Weather Talk," 1901


Oh, Tlaloc, turn your sorrow on us
That we may be bathed in your tears.
~Charles Hutchinson, "Prayer to Tlaloc, God of Rain"


The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency. ~Susan Allen Toth, England For All Seasons, 1997


Thick drops whispering about me
Splutter soft and plash my shelter,
Foaming at my feet I see
Rushing gutter streams which skelter,
Crystal pools reflecting grass blades...
Shining pavements rainbow shades...
Thin thoughts whispering about me
Splutter soft and plash my shelter...
~Eda Lou Walton, "Under an Umbrella," c. 1919


On rainy days the sidewalks were tiny lakes into which I looked at the gray world about me. The trees shooting deep into the ground made me dizzy... I touched the trees, but the rippling water broke up the picture. ~Anonymous freshman college student, c.1916


O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,
As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement.
The façades frown gloomily at its beauty...
With rippling, curling,
Serpentine convolutions
The pavements drip with drunken light.
Crimson and gold,
Shot with opal,
They glare against the sullen night.
~John Gould Fletcher, "Solitude in the City: The Evening Rain"


I walked barefoot — the only way to walk on a muddy road. ~Laurie Gough, "Light on a Moonless Night" (Fiji), in A Woman’s Passion for Travel: More True Stories from a Woman’s World, 1999


The crisp drenching rustle from the dry foliage of the perceptibly grateful trees... the little plants, in speechless ecstasy, receiving cupful after cupful into the outspread leaves, that silently empty their gracious load, time after time, into the still expecting roots, and open their hands still for more. ~John Richard Vernon, "The Beauty of Rain," 1863


Wild clouds roll up, slag-dark and slaty gray,
And in the oaks the sere wind sobs and sighs,
Weird as a word a man before he dies
Mutters beneath his breath yet fears to say:
The rain drives down; and by each forest way
Each dead leaf drips, and murmurings arise
As of fantastic footsteps, — one who flies,
Whispering, — the dim eidolon of the day...
~Madison Julius Cawein (1865–1914), "Winter Rain"


Troubles are usually the brooms and shovels that smooth the road to a man's good fortune, of which he little dreams; and many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger... ~Giambattista Basile (c.1575–1632), The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories, translated from the Neapolitan by John Edward Taylor, 1848


rain and wind speak
of more than just
water and air —
rain patters hope
wind whispers let go
~Terri Guillemets


Some of the clouds in the west, backlit by an indigo dusk, were letting out spiderwebs of virga, rain falling in long and gossamer veils, but not touching ground. ~Craig Childs, Virga & Bone: Essays from Dry Places, 2019


I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder....
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Cloud"


Good night. I have said my prayer with the forest; stood to the dark and the rain; cast my voice on the storm. Though my body shall lie in heavy slumber, my petition has gone on, caught and carried in the surge of the trees, whirled in high vortex over the mountain, drifting in black mists through the fertile night. Acknowledged, answered, in the drip of the rain. ~Virginia Garland, "The Rain," Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, February 1908


The wind is like a spirit
And the sea a mystery;
But the blessed rain is a living voice
That speaks through the night to me.
~Charles Buxton Going, "Voice of the Rain," Star-Glow & Song, 1909


The rain dwindled and stopped. The car windows were speckled with moisture, already evaporating in the heat. Soon enough, the sidewalks would be scorched clean, the sky clear, the clouds burned away into wisps. ~Abby Geni, The Wildlands, 2018


Rain on leaves,
Drip, thrip, thud, thlong,
Is sewing them forever
To the grass, to the ground...
~Mark Van Doren (1894–1972), "Rain on Leaves," Good Morning: Last Poems by Mark Van Doren, 1973  [a book of poems written during the final three years of his life —tg]


It was a messy, whipping, every-which-direction, cold drops in warm air, big-splattered summer rain. ~Terri Guillemets


The doors of abysmal gloom swing wide. Under the covert of the night the storm breaks loose. The heavily breathing earth, no longer passive, starts, turns with exhilarant response under a torrent of tingling rain... The swirling song of the storm calls to some dim, long-forgotten instinct, which is suddenly unleashed. I am athirst for the unencumbered impact of the rain... My shoulders are mantled in running scarves of rain... Over and through all, the soaking, palpable darkness, penetrating deep, deep, to the heart of the earth. ~Virginia Garland, "The Rain," Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, February 1908


All night our room was outer-walled with rain.
Drops fell and flattened on the tin roof,
And rang like little disks of metal.
Ping! — Ping! — and there was not a pin-point of silence between them.
The rain rattled and clashed,
And the slats of the shutters danced and glittered.
But to me the darkness was red-gold and crocus-coloured
With your brightness,
And the words you whispered to me
Sprang up and flamed — orange torches against the rain.
Torches against the wall of cool, silver rain!
~Amy Lowell, "Summer Rain," Pictures of the Floating World, 1919


Rain is a wet apology for the drought. ~Terri Guillemets, "Desert emotions," 2004


– What the hail?
– For the hail of it
– Hail yah!
~Frozen rain wordplay


For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Poet's Tale: The Birds of Killingworth," Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1863


Rain utters poetry in drops, splats, and puddles. ~Terri Guillemets


      "Don't you think it's rather poor weather for walking?" Jonathan said.
      I responded glibly, "Some one has said there is no such thing as bad weather, there are only good clothes."
      He looked out at the puddling road, "You'll get your hair wet."
      "I hope so! Perhaps you'd rather stay indoors and be a tabby-cat and keep dry." The fact was, Jonathan really wanted to go, but he didn't want to start. When people really enjoy doing a thing, and mean to do it, and yet won't get going, something has to be done to get them going...
      Out we went into the drenched world. Whish! And now that we're really wet, we can enjoy ourselves. "How the rain changes everything!" I said. All the colors had freshened and darkened, and the blur of the falling rain softened the world. In the woods the water was everywhere, ready to hurl itself upon us, from above, from beside us, from below. Every step, every motion, drew upon us drenching showers of great drops that had been hanging heavily in the leaves ready to break away at a touch. There is as much exhilaration in being out in a big rain and getting really rained through, as there is in being out in surf.
      It has nothing in common with the sensations that arise when, umbrellaed and mackintoshed and rubber-overshoed, we pick our way gingerly along the street, wondering how much we can keep dry and fancying how we shall look when we "get there." But when you don't care — when you want to get wet, and do — there is a physical glow that is delightful, a sense of being washed through and through, of losing one's identity almost, and being washed away into the great swirl of nature where one doesn't count much, but is glad to be taken in as a part.
      I fancy this is true with any of the elements — earth, air, water. The tale of Antæus was no mere legend; there is real strength for us in close contact with the earth. There is a purifying and uplifting potency in the winds, a potency in the waters — ocean and river and great rain. Our civilization has dealt with all these so successfully that we are apt to think of them as docile servants, or perhaps as petty annoyances, and we lose the sense of their power unless we deliberately go out to meet them in their own domain and let them have their way with us. Then, indeed, they sweep us out of ourselves for a season, and that is good. ~Elisabeth Woodbridge, "In the Rain," 1911  [altered —tg]


Some people feel the rain — others just get wet. ~Roger Miller, 1972


It's better to go out and dance in the rain than to stay inside under a leaky roof. ~Vance L. Wisen, 1991


Hail is just angry rain. ~Terri Guillemets, 1987


In July and August on the high desert the thunderstorms come... Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air. A smell of ozone. While the clouds exchange their bolts no rain falls, but now they begin bombarding the buttes and pinnacles below... The clouds thicken, then crack and split with a roar like that of cannonballs tumbling down a marble staircase; their bellies open and the rain comes down. ~Edward Abbey, "Water," Desert Solitaire, 1968  [a little altered —tg]


I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls..
~Paul Simon, "Kathy’s Song," 1965 ♫


      There is still one kind of bath, hitherto unused, which would be very advantageous both to parents and children, I mean a thunder-storm bath. Physicians employ in their experiments on nervous invalids, electric air, electric plates, electric baths; but thunder, or rather thunder water, they have not as yet prescribed. Have they never experienced that a person never feels so fresh, cheerful and elastic as after a warm or tepid rain has penetrated to the skin? Since human beings, when dry again after a storm, feel so much invigorated, and the world of flowers still more so, why will they not receive this united fire and water baptism from above, and suffer themselves to be raised the healed by the wonder-working arm in the thunder cloud?
      One ought to have an especial rain or bathing suit of clothes, as a frequenter of the spring cloud-baths; and then, when there is a promise of wet weather, make a rain party, and return home dripping. ~Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763–1825), Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education, 1807, translated from the German by A. H., 1848 & 1884


The rain cools the air, calms the soul and replenishes life. ~Mike Dolan, 2015


A rainy landscape has a great charm for me; the dark tints become more velvety, the softer tones more ethereal. The country in rain is like a face with traces of tears upon it... ~Henri Frédéric Amiel, 1871, translated by Mary Augusta Arnold Ward


...sometimes i ran on serendipitous, sunny-warm days:
on clear blue days when skies were mountainous with strata of white and gray;
on wet days when the wind put happy tears
on my cheeks and eyelashes
and the puddles beneath my feet were meant to be jumped over...
~Ken Sekaquaptewa and Candy St. Jacques, Sahuaro, 1970, yearbook of the Associated Students of Arizona State University


The freshness of the rain-wind blew against her face. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915


dancing in the rain
at nature's cloudy party
~Terri Guillemets


A Ribes close by is covered with hanging pink blossoms; the intense green of the steep bank is due to there having hitherto been more April tears than smiles. ~Lady John Manners, "Belvoir at Eastertide," in The Garden: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Horticulture In All Its Branches, 1886


Come inside now.
Stand beside the warming stove.
Watch out through the windows as
a cold rain tears down
the last leaves...
~David Budbill, "Come Inside Now," Happy Life, 2011, davidbudbill.com


Meantime there came a shower, which so besprinkled the grass and shrubbery as to make it rather wet for our after-tea ramble. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, journal, 1842 August 15th


For months we have had scarcely any rain... The grass and the trees have seemed to remain at a standstill, as though waiting for something. When I pour waterpot after waterpot of water about the roots of some favourite or needy plant, the water runs off the caked ground... seemingly, without quenching the fever-thirst of the earth... the beauty of rain is a thing often missed, I think, even by those who do keep, as they pass through this world, a keen eye for the Creator's thoughts, embodied in beauty about them... ~John Richard Vernon, "The Beauty of Rain," 1863


I'm wet in rain
that never falls.
~Juan Hernández-Senter, "It Never Rains Here," Misquotations and Other Poems, 1990


Walking through puddles is my favorite metaphor for life. ~Terri Guillemets, "Evening walk in solitude," 1989


Knock at my pane
With your finger-tips,
O rain.
~Pearl Andelson, "Solace," c.1921


"Fire's better than rain, anyway," one of them said.
"Oh, is that so?" I shot back at him. "If it wasn't for rain there wouldn't be any good fishing... And another thing... look at Queen Victoria; she reigned for fifty years and she didn't get mad." ~Percy Keese Fitzhugh, Roy Blakeley: Lost, Strayed or Stolen, 1921


It is beautiful when it rains far away in the distance, the bright sun shining on the mound on which you stand, and only a few guerilla drops heralding the approach of the shower towards you. ~John Richard Vernon, "The Beauty of Rain," 1863





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published 2000 Apr 24
revised 2001, 2012, 2019
last saved 2024 Sep 11
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