| Rain | |
| 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 | 5 |
| Since I was born into this solitude. | |
| Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: | |
| But here I pray that none whom once I loved | |
| Is dying to-night or lying still awake | |
| Solitary, listening to the rain, | 10 |
| Either in pain or thus in sympathy | |
| Helpless among the living and the dead, | |
| Like a cold water among broken reeds, | |
| Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff, | |
| Like me who have no love which this wild rain | 15 |
| Has not dissolved except the love of death, | |
| If love it be for what is perfect and | |
| Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint. | |
Rain — Written 7 January, 1916, while Thomas was stationed in England. |
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| Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon — This is an overt reference to the beatitudes from Matthew in chapter 5 in the New Testament. (A different version appears in Luke.) Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, in which he describes various people (such as “the poor in spirit,” “the meek,” “they that mourn,” “the merciful,” and so on) who are blessed. | |