rain by edward thomas was written in 1916 but only appeared in the published collection poems after his death in 1917. spurred on by the poem the road not taken which friend and fellow poet robert frost had written to mock thomas gently for his indecisiveness when out on country walks he took the decision to enlist the fight in the first world war in july 1915 even though he could have avoided this due to both his age he was 37 and the fact that he was married after completing his military training in epping forest in north london he was sent to the western front in northern france where he was killed in action on the first day of the battle of aris on the 9th of april 1917. thomas who was already well known for his prose writing in the form of literary reviews criticism essays and books on nature and the countryside only began writing poetry at the end of 1914 just after the start of the first world war in these two and a half years before his death he produced 142 poems although he's commemorated with 15 other great war poets on a slate plaque in westminster abbey's poet's corner he did not consider himself to be a war poet and wrote no trench poems unlike for example wilfred owen and siegfried sassoon with much of his work featuring instead the english countryside before enlisting thomas and his family had lived for a number of years in the area around the village of steep in hampshire steep by name and steep by nature one of thomas's houses was high on a hilltop exposed to both wind and mist and thomas admitted that it was while living here that he had become obsessed with the weather which we see come to the fore in the poem rain and that he used this obsession to process his feelings about other issues in his life the poem is introspective and somewhat morbid in tone the speaker is lying awake at night in a hut listening to the rain beating relentlessly down he describes how it makes him acutely aware of his own existence and therefore of his own mortality and by extension the mortality of others although there's no explicit mention of war containing as it does only rather vague and metaphorical allusions to battlefield casualties it's like the elephant in the room its presence hanging over the poem like a dark cloud the poem is essentially a study in ambivalence exploring as it does thomas's mixed emotions towards the rain solitude his fellow man love and death and successfully encapsulates the paradox of the human condition that what unites us is the fact that we are all basically alone ironically it is thomas's sense of alienation from the rest of humankind that enables him to express both sympathy and compassion the poem comprises one stanza of eighteen lines most lines are ten syllables in length although there is some variation with one catalytic line of nine syllables and three hyper catalectic lines of eleven the poem has a base meter of iambic pentameter de dum du dum du dum du dum dum the regularity of which helps to enhance the idea of the monotonous beating down of rain on a roof although thomas does in places substitute other metrical feet to interrupt the rhythm such as trochees dumdee spondees dumb dumb anapists and dactyls as well as employing caesura in places to enforce a pause in the middle of a line perhaps to evoke a squall or sudden gust of rain there's also extensive use of enjambment with more than half the lines featuring no punctuation at the end thus requiring the reader to continue without pause perhaps suggesting that thomas's thoughts are as relentless and as obsessive as the pouring rain this is further enhanced by the fact that the poem also consists of only two very complex sentences spanning lines one to six and line seven to the end which contain a number of coordinating conjunctions such as and but and for correlative conjunctions such as neither nor and either or and subordinating conjunctions such as that since who which if etc the poem has no rhyme scheme which in combination with the fact that it has a base meter of iambic pentameter means that it can be categorized as blank first even though there's no end rhyme the poet does use techniques such as internal rhyme eg dying and lying para rhyme eg bean and born repetition of phrases such as wild rain and broken reeds which both appear twice polyptytine e.g rain reigns solitude solitary die dead dying death and love loved and alliteration and assonance which can both be identified in the phrase still and stiff to give the poem not only a sense of continuity and cohesion but also to evoke the persistence and intrusiveness not only of the rain but also of his thoughts the poem's one word title reign is deceptively simple and believes the complexity of the poem's underlying preoccupations relating to the nature of existence solitude war love and death rain is a motif running through the poem what begins as literal wild reign in line one can be interpreted by the time we reach its second appearance in line 15 as a metaphor not only for the storm of war centered on europe but also for the turbulent thoughts and existential anxiety that plagued the insomniac thomas the poem begins in the middle of a stormy night rain midnight rain nothing but the wild rain on this bleak hut thomas creates a desolate picture here not only does the choice of the adjectives midnight and wild to describe the rain evoke a dark savage and uncontrollable elemental force but the adjective bleak also conjures a barren isolated and depressing environment the implied smallness of the hut it described suggesting exposure and vulnerability note the repetition of the word rain which appears three times in the first line suggesting its unrelenting nature thomas also modifies the rhythm of the very first line substituting four of the regulation ions de dumb with two spondees dumb dumb and two trochees dumdee resulting in seven rather than five stressed syllables out of the ten in the line rain midnight rain nothing but the wild rain which serves to enhance its incessant force he continues 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 since i was born into this solitude note the polycindatin here which suggests the way in which the unceasing reign sets off a train of thoughts leading him to focus on his solitude or aloneness either because he is the only one awake or because there is no one there in the hut with him this in turn indicated by the second and prompts him to reflect on his own mortality because he has been made aware of his existence i.e the fact that the rain is keeping him awake because he can hear it is evidence that he is still alive but it also reminds him that he won't be able to hear it when he is dead note that this isn't some kind of epiphany or revelation for him as all it does is lead him to remember again that i shall die this is a subject it seems that has preoccupied him before he thus begins the poem by expressing mixed feelings towards the rain by keeping him awake it makes him painfully aware that he is both alive and mortal in other words being conscious that you are alive necessarily means that you are conscious that you will die yet he also recognizes the reigns cleansing qualities he is regretful that when he is dead he will be unable to give it thanks for purifying his corpse for washing me cleaner than i have been since i was born into this solitude beyond the literal cleansing of the body we get a sense that he feels it will be some kind of ablution a metaphorical ritual purging of sin note how he once more refers to solitude but this time it's a solitude that goes beyond his sense of physical isolation in the hut it is instead one that he has been born into and suggests that he has always felt spiritually alone the religious illusions of these lines are reflected in the next blessed are the dead that the rain reigns upon which suggests that he perceives death to be a relief note the politonic repetition of rain reigns in this line which creates a sense of force his words echo the section of jesus's sermon on the mount known as the beatitudes which is recounted in the book of matthew chapter 5 verses 3 to 12 in which jesus lists the blessings that make up the character of the people of the kingdom of heaven e.g blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven know that thomas punctuates this line with a column as does matthew but instead of continuing with the coordinating conjunction for meaning because thomas chooses the coordinating conjunction but once more seeming to have mixed feelings as he is unable to follow through decisively with his train of thought even though he allows that these dead are blessed he nevertheless prays that none whom once i loved is dying tonight or lying still awake solitary listening to the rain the phrase none whom once i loved is in all likelihood and a bleak reference to those young men who were his friends before the war and who may now be dying on a battlefield or lying alone unable to sleep as they too listen to the rain just like him pondering their own mortality note how he communicates that his affection for them is in the past suggesting that things will never be the same again that war has torn people and relationships apart and that he too will probably end up a battlefield casualty note also how the imagery brings us back to the beginning of the poem the circularity of this structure suggesting the obsessive nature of thomas's thoughts although he professes to feel alienated from the rest of humanity with his constant references to solitude and being solitary he nevertheless communicates that he feels deep compassion for his fellow humans as he neither wishes for them to be in pain or lying awake thus or like he is in sympathy feeling as he does helpless among the living and the dead like a cold water among broken reeds myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff his simile here creates a powerful and desolate image of dead soldiers as broken reeds structures that once stood tall and strong perhaps at the edge of a river or in a lake now hopelessly destroyed the cold water in which they stand no longer a life-giving force thomas evokes the scale of lives lost in the next line as he describes there being myriads or an uncountable number of broken reeds all still and stiff the sibilant alliteration of the st sounds and absent sounds instill and stiff enhancing the connection between the rigidity of the reeds and that of the corpses thomas develops this image by comparing himself to these dead bodies suggesting that he is as good as dead emotionally like me who have no love which this wild reign has not dissolved except the love of death note that thomas once more circles background to the rain he can hear outside and how it makes him feel the repetition of wild reign from line one further enhancing this connection there's a sense that thomas is conflating the literal wild reign here which is hammering down on his hut with the metaphorical storm of war which is engulfing the world as well as perhaps the turmoil of his thoughts it is this which has dissolved any love he has felt for his fellow man or even for life itself leaving only the love of death perhaps because it will be a relief from the pain of the solitude of existence thomas remains ambivalent about even this however as he questions whether it can be love he feels because that in stark contrast to death leads only to heartache and disappointment if love it be towards what is perfect and cannot the tempest tells me disappoint he concludes that death is perfect and cannot disappoint presumably because not only is it final and certain but it is also a definitive release from both the inward and outward storm that is his existence thanks for watching if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section below and i'll do my best to answer them 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