Poetry · Chapter
It Rains explained
The speaker walks alone in a rain-soaked orchard, finding a paradoxical happiness in solitude while mourning the loss of a shared past.
What happens
The speaker walks alone in a rain-soaked orchard, finding a paradoxical happiness in solitude while mourning the loss of a shared past. The rain and the ghostly parsley flower evoke memories of a lover, and the speaker acknowledges that such joy can never be recaptured except in solitary reflection.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Loss
The speaker mourns the lost intimacy of walking and kissing in the rain, knowing that joy will never return.
Solitude and Reflection
The speaker finds a bittersweet happiness in searching the wilderness alone, while the past hovers like a ghostly flower.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The speaker walks alone in the orchard, reflecting on past love and present solitude.
Key passages
“And I am nearly as happy as possible / To search the wilderness in vain though well, / To think of two walking, kissing there, / Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain”
I am almost completely happy searching the empty orchard, even though I know it is futile, because it lets me imagine two people walking and kissing, soaked but oblivious to the rain.
The speaker finds joy in memory and imagination, even as the present remains solitary.
“Sad, too, to think that never, never again, / Unless alone, so happy shall I walk / In the rain.”
It is also sad to realize that I will never again walk in the rain with such happiness, except when I am by myself.
The speaker acknowledges that the shared joy of the past is irrecoverable, and only solitary walks can now evoke a similar feeling.
“The past hovering as it revisits the light.”
The past lingers in the air, returning to the light like a ghost.
The parsley flower becomes a symbol of memory, suspended and ghostly, as the past revisits the present.