The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But in every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

To what extent does the weather influence your emotive state. If it is raining and you what to play golf you might feel a little disappointed. There are plenty of other things to do besides golf of course. But in this poem it looks like the person is stuck in that dreary non acceptance of weather state. Dark and dreary is repeated in quite a few lines mirroring this stuck in the mud state, if you excuse the analogy.

But it is not so much of wanting a game of golf. It looks like the person is stuck firmly in the past in the same way ivy has that annoying habit of clinging to brickwork. In our previous home we had to deal with it and from memory it was not easy. Forgetting the past may not be easy for some and I think as we age the past hits our memory face more often whether remembering the sunshine at the beach or being fixated on that annoying conglomerate of weeds that have said hello this springtime.

The last two stanzas turn philosophical, and everyone has regrets. Rain is beneficial to the garden. In every gust the dead leaves fall! So, get over it and get out there and enjoy the day. Perhaps time to have a glass of wine with your evening meal!

There are plenty of poetic aspects which I have not discussed apart from rhyming and repetition including alliteration, assonance, personification, and consonance – the sound or r in that repetitive line ‘the day is dark and cold and dreary’.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Wikipedia