THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

                          BY : WALT WHITMAN

https://youtu.be/pybuDRMELNE 

An interesting explanation to this poem in Hindi.

Glossary:- 

Thou – you 

Soft-falling – dropping gently 

Shower – raindrops when they fall continuously on Earth 

Eternal – everlasting , forever , permanent 

Impalpable – unable to be felt by touching,  intangible 

Bottomless – very deep 

Bottomless sea :- very deep sea

Upward – towards a higher level 

Whence – from where 

Vaguely – unclearly 

Form’d- made into a specific shape or form 

Descend – move of fall downwards , come down from a height 

Lave – wash 

Droughts – dry spells , dryness caused by want of water or rain

Atomies – very tiny particles 

Latent - dormant, inactive , hidden

Origin - source , root

Beautify - make beautiful 

Issuing - originating, starting, coming out 

Fulfillment - completing the cycle ( here in poem after raining for the earth,song being listened to)

Wandering - moving from one place to another ( here in the poem clouds roaming across the sky , music listened to by everyone) 

Reck’d - cared about , liked,  appreciated 

Unreck’d - uncared for,  disliked,  unnoticed 

Duly - properly, rightly

THEME: The poem is written in the form of a conversation between the poet and the rain.

It describes the importance of rain which gives life to the earth and nurtures all living beings.

MAIN POINTS:

• The poets asks the rain “and who art thou?” and strangely the rain replies, calling itself the “poem of earth”.

• The rain says that it is born from the earth but it cannot be seen since it is in the form of vapours.

• It rises into the sky to form clouds and then falls back to the earth in the form of drops.

• It removes droughts and washes away even the tiniest particles. It falls on dry seeds

which appear lifeless and helps them sprout into saplings.

• It gives life to its own origin i.e. earth; it purifies and beautifies the earth. Like song coming out from the heart, it spreads joy all around and seeps back into the earth.It does not care whether anybody pays heed or not, rain continuously does her own work.

POETIC DEVICES:

1. PERSONIFICATION:- “said the voice of the rain” Rain speaks throughout the poem. “I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe”, “I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it;” etc.

2. ANTITHESIS: - “All together changed, and yet the same”- two opposite ideas have been pulled together to describe the continuous cycle of rain.

3. METAPHOR:- “I am the poem of the earth”.

4.IMAGERY: In the first line of the poem, ‘Soft falling Shower’ gives the reader an image of gentle rain.  

5. ALLITERATION: – 

Consonance :- 

“(s)aid I to the (s)oft-falling (s)hower”, “(w)hence, (v)aguely form’d” etc.

Assonance :- 

Show(er) , Answer in the first two lines 

(A)nswer , Tr(a)nslated  in the first line

R(ai)n, Ch(an)ged , S(am)e in line number 3, 5.

Gl(o)be , (O)wn, Unb(o)rn , (O)rigin in line number 6, 7 and 8.

6. HYPERBOLE: – bottomless sea

7. APOSTROPHE:- In the first line of ‘The Vice of the Rain,’ the speaker describes asking the rain who it is and what its basic nature is. This is a great example of an apostrophe. 

RHYMING SCHEME:-  free verse. 

HALF RHYME:- For  example, "shower" and "answer" in the first two lines share slant internal rhyme ( half rhyme) with the /er/ sound.

EXTRACTS : 

(i) And who art thou? Said I to t4he soft Falling shower

Which, stranger to tell, gave me an

Answer as here translated:

I am the poem of the earth, said the voice of the rain.

(a) Name the poem and the poet?

Ans. Walt Whitman

(b) Who is the speaker here? Who is he speaking to?

Ans. Walt Whitman,the poet, is the speaker. He is speaking to the rain.

(c) Which image has been created in the first line?

Ans. The poet has created the image of a beautiful rainy day where the rain in falling down softly on the earth.

(d) Explain the phrase “which strange to tell, gave me an answer”.

Ans.The poet is speaking to the rain. He is taken aback when the rain gives a reply to his question.

(e) Which poetic device has been used here?

Ans. Personification- the rain is speaking and giving answers like human beings.

Alliteration-”an answer as here...”

(f) Find a word/phrase from the extract which means “drizzle”.

Ans. “soft falling shower” means drizzle.

(g) What are the meanings of the words “art” and “thou”?

Ans. “Art” means are; “thou” means you.

(h) What does the rain call itself?

Ans. The rain calls itself the poem of the earth.

(i) Why does that rain call itself so?

Ans.Just as a poem originates from the heart of the poet and gives joy to every listener or reader, similarly, the rain originates from the earth and gives happiness to every living being, nourishes the earth, gives life to plants. 

 (j) Which poetic device is there in the phrase “I am the poem of earth”?

Ans. Metaphor.

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(ii) “I am the poem of the earth, said the voice of the rain,

Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea”.

(a) Who is the speaker in the above lines? Who is “I” speaking to?

Ans. The rain is the speaker here. It is speaking to the poet.

(b) Find out words form the extract which mean the same as:

1. Ever-lasting

2. Which cannot be seen

Ans. 1. Eternal;

2. Impalpable

(c) Why does the rain call itself “impalpable”?

Ans. The water on the surface of the earth evaporates in the form of vapours

and rises up in the sky. This is an ever-lasting process but cannot be seen by us. Therefore, the rain calls itself “impalpable”.

(d) Where does the rain rise up from?

Ans. The rain rises up from “the land and bottomless sea”.

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(iii) Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, Altogether changed, and yet the same. 

I descend to lave the droughts, atomies, Dust layers of the globe, 

And all that in them without me were Seeds only, latent, unborn:

(a) Explain “altogether changed, and yet the same”.

Ans. Rain changes several forms still it remains the same. It rises from the earth in the form of vapours. It rises up to form clouds. Then it cools down and falls on the earth in the form of water droplets.

(b) Explain the phrase “vaguely form’d”.

Ans. It means that the vapours rise up from the earth to form clouds of various shapes and sizes. Their shape is not definite.

(c) Which word in the extract means the same as “wash”?

Ans. Lave

(d) Explain the phrase “I descend to lave the droughts”

Ans. Rain falls on the earth and satisfies everyone’s thirst. It washes away famines.

(e) Whom does “I” refer to in the lines above? Ans. “I” refers to the rain.

(f) Explain the last two lines.

Ans. Seeds appear to be dry and lifeless, yet, as rain falls on them they sprout into new plants.

(g) Which word in the extract means “inactive or untapped”?

Ans. Latent

(h) What would happen to the seeds without rain?

Ans. The seeds would remain unborn without the rain.

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(iv) And forever by day and night, I give back life to my Own origin, and make pure

and beautify it; (For song, issuing from its birthplace, after Fulfilment,

wandering. Reck’d or unreck’d duly with love returns).

(a) Who is “I” in the first line?

Ans. “I” is the rain.

(b) What does “I” do to its own origin?

Ans. The rain gives back life to its origin. It makes pure and beautifies it.

(c) Where does “I” originate from? Ans. The rain originates from the earth.

(d) Explain the phrase “make pure and beautify”. Ans. The earth washes away even the tiniest of the particles. It removes droughts and dust. Thus, it purifies and beautifies the earth.

(e) What has the rain been compared to?

Ans. The poet has compared rain to a song because he finds similarity in both.

(f) Is the comparison made by poet justified according to you?

Ans. Yes. Just as a song originates from the heart and gives joy to every listener. Similarly, rain originates form the earth and spreads happiness and contentment everywhere.

Question and Answers 

Students are advised to answer the questions given in their prescribed book also.  

Q.1. There are two voices in the poem. Who do they belong to? Which lines indicate this? 

 Ans. The poem begins in a conversational tone. The two voices in the poem are the  voice of the poet and the voice of the rain. The lines that indicate the voice of the poet  and the rain are, “And who art thou? Said I to the soft-falling shower,” and the lines that  indicate the voice of the rain are, “I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain”. 

 Q.2. What does the phrase "strange to tell" mean? 

 Ans. The phrase “strange to tell” means that it is quite strange for the poet to believe and  express in words that the soft-falling rain replied to his question. At the beginning of the poem,  the poet inquires the rain about its identity, to which the rain replies that it is the 'Poem of Earth'.

Q.3. There is a parallel drawn between rain and music. Which words indicate this? Explain  the similarity between the two. 

Ans. The lines, “I am the Poem of Earth”, said by the voice of the rain, reflects a connection  between rain and poet. This connection becomes more easily visible in the final two lines, 

“(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfillment, wandering 

 Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns)”. 

In these lines, the poet draws similarities between rain and music observing that the life-cycle of  rain and song are alike. The song issues from the heart of the poet and travels to reach others. It  wanders and, whether heard and enjoyed or not, eventually returns to its creator with all due  love. Similarly, rain originates from the earth, and after fulfilling its role of spreading beauty and  purity, returns to its origin. Both are perpetual in nature. Moreover, the sound of the soft-falling  rain is in itself a kind of music. 

Q.4. How is the cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem? Compare it with what  you have learnt in science. 

Ans. In the poem, the water rises from the 'land and the bottomless sea' to reach the sky. There, it  transforms itself into clouds, different in their structure than the water from  which they originate. After wandering, these clouds descend to the earth in the form of rain to  provide relief to the drought-ridden areas and infuse life into the unborn and latent seeds. The  rain renders the earth with beauty and purity.  In science, we learn the cyclical process of rain in terms like evaporation,condensation, precipitation, flowing rivers, ground water and ocean water etc, while in the poem the same process becomes interesting and unusual. The rain speaks itself to describe its cycle. 

Q.5. Why are the last two lines put within brackets? 

Ans.The lines in the bracket indicate the reflections, observations and thoughts of the poet. He makes observations about the life-course of a song and draws similarities between the life-cycle of a song and rain.

Q. 6. Elaborate the setting of the poem , Voice of The Rain". 

Ans. The poem is set in two places. The first is where the speaker is standing amidst the "soft-falling showers," talking to the rain. 

The second setting is the entire Earth. Although there is an interaction between two beings the rain and the poet (which would have to occur in a specific location), this interaction includes a wide-ranging discussion of the whole planet, and even of the skies and atmosphere surrounding it. The rain describes its water cycle. Thus the poem gives the rain a widespread presence.

Q.7 Who is the speaker of the poem , " Voice of the Rain " ? Discuss . 

Technically there is only one speaker that is rain. But word "I" tells that the first speaker is the poet , who asks the rain , "And who are thou?" . The speaker is not expecting an answer from the rain but the rain responded.  Here the voice of the rain is not literal one but rain's voice is imagined and translated into words. So the rain gives us an impression that it speaks but it is the narrator ( poet) who narrates the poem in the voice of the rain. The personification of rain suggests that the rain is the main speaker who describes its cycle,  nourishing nature and life-sustaining force. 

Q8. Explain the nourishing nature of the poetry.