b y H. W. Longfellow
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;
He can feel the cool
Breath of each little pool;
His fevered brain
Grows calm again,
And he breathes a blessing on the rain.
From the neighboring school
Come the boys,
With more than their wonted noise
And commotion;
And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic fleets,
Till the treacherous pool
Ingulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.
In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,
Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,
To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!
In the furrowed land
The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale
The clover-scented gale,
And the vapors that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil.
For this rest in the furrow after toil
Their large and lustrous eyes
Seem to thank the Lord,
More than man's spoken word.
Near at hand,
From under the sheltering trees,
The farmer sees
His pastures, and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops
To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.
He counts it as no sin
That he sees therein
Only his own thrift and gain.
These, and far more than these,
The Poet sees!
He can behold
Aquarius old
Walking the fenceless fields of air;
And from each ample fold
Of the clouds about him rolled
Scattering everywhere
The showery rain,
As the farmer scatters his grain.
He can behold
Things manifold
That have not yet been wholly told,--
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, that never stops,
Follows the water-drops
Down to the graves of the dead,
Down through chasms and gulfs profound,
To the dreary fountain-head
Of lakes and rivers under ground;
And sees them, when the rain is done,
On the bridge of colors seven
Climbing up once more to heaven,
Opposite the setting sun.
Thus the Seer,
With vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear,
In the perpetual round of strange,
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth,
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;
Till glimpses more sublime
Of things, unseen before,
Unto his wondering eyes reveal
The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel
Turning forevermore
In the rapid and rushing river of Time.

Name_______________________________________________________________________________Period_______
Paraphrase the images in each stanza (as determined by the class) in the space provide below. USE A DICTIONARY.
It’s so beautiful and welcome to have it rain after the heat and dust on the hot street and to hear its beautiful clatter on the roofs and see its gush and flow out of the spout. It pours fast and wide down the windows and very loud down the gutter.
Stanza 5
Stanza 6
Stanza 1
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Stanza 7
Stanza 8
Stanza 9

Answer the below questions in one or more complete sentences.
1. Now that you have considered the poem as a whole, what is its controlling symbol? Explain how the symbol works.
2. Identify two other symbols, one from the 8 th stanza and one from the 9 th stanza.
3. What is the subject of the poem? (Hint: It’s not rain.) 4. What is the author’s attitude (tone) toward the subject?
5. What is the theme/message of the poem?

Mini-essay prompt: How does Henry Wadsworth Longfellow use symbol and imagery to create the theme of the poem
“Rain in Summer”? Open with a concise introduction of two or three sentences and close with a short conclusion with two or three sentences. The conclusion should restate your claim from the introduction in a more thoughtful, creative way. Write two body paragraphs with one explaining and analyzing the primary symbol and the other explaining and analyzing the imagery. The scale will be used to score your mini-essay. Start your essay below and attach loose leaf paper to finish.
4
Has a claim directly answering the question, apt textual evidence supporting answer, and a clear explanation tying the examples the claim. No grammatical errors.
The organization follows the directions exactly and uses transitional words.
3
Has a weakness in the claim, evidence, or the explanation. Has one or two grammatical errors. The organization mostly follows the directions and uses more-thanadequate transitional words.
2
Has weaknesses in two of the three categories: claim, evidence, or explanation. Has quite a few grammatical errors. The organizational structure does not completely follow the directions and transitional words are lacking.
1
Has weaknesses in all categories and many serious grammatical errors. The organization is not adequate and transitions are not apparent or used appropriately.
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Stanza 4
Stanza 5
Stanza 6
Stanza 7
Stanza 8
Stanza 1 It’s so beautiful and welcome to have it rain after the heat and dust on the hot street and to hear its beautiful clatter on the roofs and see its gush and flow out of the spout. It pours fast and wide down the windows and very loud down the gutter.
Stanza 2 From his bedroom a sick man looking out at the rain run down the street can feel its coolness; it cools his fever and he is grateful.
Stanza 3 Boys come out of the nearby school louder and more active than usual, and they sail their paper sailboats down the wild puddles that are like the ocean.
Stanza 9
The enormous surrounding countryside spotted brown and tan with dryness welcomes the rain.
The hard-working oxen lift their heads from the heaviness of the yoke, spread their nostrils and breathe in the clover scented breeze as it rises up from the furrowed land as they pause from their hard work and appear to thank God with their eyes for the rain even more than if man stated it aloud.
Nearby the farmer under tree cover watches his pastures and grain fields bend under the pounding rain drops and does not feel guilty that he sees the rain as a benefit to his own financial gain and livelihood.
The Poet sees all these things and more. He sees old Aquarius walking in the open air and scattering the clouds and the rain like the farmer planting his grain in the ground. He can see imagine crops in abundance before they have actually grown and harvested.
The Poet can envision the rain travelling deep as the graves through hollows and gaps all the way to underground waterways which are their source, and can see them again travelling in the form of a rainbow back up to heaven.
The Seer, the Poet, can also see forms (human? animal?) travel through the cycles of life from birth to death and death to birth and travelling from heaven to earth and back to heaven. He can even see the eternity, God, the Universe, as a wheel forever turning alongside the rain’s journey from the heavens to earth and back again to the heavens.

1. Now that you have considered the poem as a whole, what is its primary controlling symbol? Explain how the symbol works.
Rain is the controlling symbol that ties the poem together. Different images depict the various celebrations of the summer rain as it quenches the earth’s thirst and makes the speaker himself, a sick man, school boys, a farmer, and the Poet grateful for each drop each for different reasons.
2. Identify two other symbols, one from the 8 th stanza and one from the 9 th stanza.
“Bridge of colors seven” = a rainbow “immeasurable wheel” = a water wheel
(Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) (used to move water or generate power)
3. What is the subject of the poem? (Hint: It’s not rain.) 4. What is the author’s attitude (tone) toward the subject?
The subject of the poem is the cycle of life with rain and the journey of rain from heaven to earth and back again parallel to the life cycle of humans (and possibly other living beings).
The author is celebratory of the natural wonders of the world, the life cycle, and the life-giving and life-sustaining properties of water and rain.
5. What is the theme/message of the poem? Brainstorm in a paragraph.
The poet expresses the joy and life-giving properties of water. Through the imagination of a hypothetical and
Seer/Poet, he depicts a concluding image of an eternal and immense turning water wheel of life representing the entire Universe, the cycle of life or circle of life, of nature, and of the sublime (nature/God’s power). This symbol parallels the symbol of the rainbow which serves as a kind of ladder for the falling rain to return to the clouds, only to fall again to Earth in a never-ending cycle of life (nature again). The poem is about the joy and wonders of nature, constant change, and the cycle of life.