Mark Twain, who lived in Hartford, once said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” He also declared, “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
His witty definitions are pretty spot on because while climate represents weather patterns in the long term, weather presents the actual conditions at hand. And more to our point, weather has inspired many wonderful poems and poetic references.
Robert Frost, whose very name has a weather connection, wrote a charming love poem about rain. He called it “A Line-Storm Song,” a line-storm being a strong rainstorm near the time of an equinox.
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
* * *
Sounding a deeper note, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow found that rain could suggest a comforting philosophy. This is called “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 at 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.
* * *
* * *
On the subject of rain in a lighter vein, no one is more focused than the Brit humorist Brian Bilston in his poem called “Today’s Forecast.” Could this be last month in the Berkshires?
After a wet start, rain will give way
to intermittent showers, interspersed
with outbreaks of rain.
As the day progresses, rainclouds
will blow in from the west, bringing with them
the chance of rain-based precipitation
until the early evening,
when the weather will finally settle down
and it will rain constantly.
Tomorrow’s outlook: rain.
With occasional intervals of rain.
* * *
Some weather poems are substantial, like “Snow-Bound,” the popular narrative poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that runs to sixty pages. And some poems are concise but memorable like this by Christina Rossetti:
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
And even more concise, this by Carl Sandburg:
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
* * *
Song writers have always had a field day using weather as the basis for a lyric. Just consider these classics:
You Are My Sunshine
Stormy Weather (Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky. . .)
Blue Skies
Winter Wonderland
White Christmas
Too Darn Hot (Cole Porter)
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
And this evocative piece by George and Ira Gershwin, an all-time favorite of mine:
A foggy day in London town
Had me low and had me down
I viewed the morning with alarm
The British Museum had lost its charm
How long, I wondered, could this thing last?
But the age of miracles hadn’t passed
For suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London town
The sun was shining everywhere.
* * *
* * *
Hurricanes are as severe as weather can get and hardly a subject for light verse. But Puerto Rico-born poet, Victor Hernández Cruz, has found an off-beat way to approach the subject. He calls this “Problems with Hurricanes.”
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it’s not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I’ll tell you he said:
it’s the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
the generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don’t worry about the noise
Don’t worry about the water
Don’t worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
* * *
Some people like to grumble about the weather, and no one could be grumblier than Ogden Nash, who goes on the attack season by season. He calls this poem “It’s Never Fair Weather.”
I do not like the winter wind
That whistles from the North.
My upper teeth and those beneath,
They jitter back and forth.
Oh, some are hanged, and some are skinned,
And others face the winter wind.
I do not like the summer sun
That scorches the horizon.
Though some delight in Fahrenheit,
To me it’s deadly poison.
I think that life would be more fun
Without the simmering summer sun.
I do not like the signs of spring,
The fever and the chills,
The icy mud, the puny bud,
The frozen daffodils.
Let other poets gaily sing;
I do not like the signs of spring.
I do not like the foggy fall
That strips the maples bare;
The radiator’s mating call,
The dank, rheumatic air;
I fear that taken in all,
I do not like the foggy fall.
The winter’s sun, of course, is kind,
And summer’s wind is a savior,
And I’ll merrily sing of fall and spring
When they’re on their good behavior.
But otherwise I see no reason
To speak in praise of any season.
I can suggest a happier view. It’s from the Victorian writer and philosopher, John Ruskin. “Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather” I like that.
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VIDEO. For our Video, here is the iconic moment when Eliza Doolittle has just learned to speak proper English . . . and it’s about weather!
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: COME RAIN OR COME SHINE
