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Emile Verhaeren - RainEmile Verhaeren - Rain
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Long as unending threads, the long-drawn rain Interminably, with its nails of grey,     Athwart the dull grey day,     Rakes the green window-pane-- So infinitely, endlessly, the rain, The long, long rain.                           The rain. Since yesternight it keeps unravelling Down from the frayed and flaccid rags that cling     About the sullen sky.     The low black sky; Since yesternight, so slowly, patiently. Unravelling its threads upon the roads. Upon the roads and lanes, with even fall                           Continual. Along the miles That `twixt the meadows and the suburbs lie, By roads interminably bent, the files Of waggons, with their awnings arched and tall. Struggling in sweat and steam, toil slowly by With outline vague as of a funeral. Into the ruts, unbroken, regular, Stretching out parallel so far That when night comes they seem to join the sky. For hours the water drips; And every tree and every dwelling weeps. Drenched as they are with it. With the long rain, tenaciously, with rain                           Indefinite. The rivers, through each rotten dyke that yields. Discharge their swollen wave upon the fields.         Where coils of drownèd hay         Float far away; And the wild breeze Buffets the alders and the walnut-trees; Knee-deep in water great black oxen stand, Lifting their bellowings sinister on high         To the distorted sky; As now the night creeps onward, all the land,         Thicket and plain, Grows cumbered with her clinging shades immense. And still there is the rain, The long, long rain. Like soot, so fine and dense.         The long, long rain.         Rain--and its threads identical,         And its nails systematical, Weaving the garment, mesh by mesh amain, Of destitution for each house and wall,         And fences that enfold         The villages, neglected, grey, and old: Chaplets of rags and linen shreds that fall In frayed-out wisps from upright poles and tall. Blue pigeon-houses glued against the thatch, And windows with a patch Of dingy paper on each lowering pane, Houses with straight-set gutters, side by side Across the broad stone gambles crucified,           Mills, uniform, forlorn. Each rising from its hillock like a horn, Steeples afar and chapels round about,           The rain, the long, long rain, Through all the winter wears and wears them out.     Rain, with its many wrinkles, the long rain     With its grey nails, and with its watery mane;     The long rain of these lands of long ago,     The rain, eternal in its torpid flow!
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