Rainy Mood?

Although much of the country is once again under drifts and mounds of snow,

we here in the Shire are floating away in dripping, drizzling rain.

I'm not complaining. If we must have a day of precipitation,

 a rainy one is much better than one snow-filled

to my way of thinking.

So upon waking this morning, I sat for a few minutes with a cup of coffee 

and watched the falling rain soak the rooftops, fill empty garden pots,

and generally turn everything squishy wet and drippy.

I concluded again, as I have before,

 that a rainy day in winter

 is best observed from the warm side of the window.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Rain is one of those things in nature that provoke emotion, good and bad.

This morning I found a rather peculiar web site called rainymood.com,

which is devoted exclusively to the sound of rain falling. 

I checked it on Yahoo Answers which pronounced it a safe site.  

It also has an active page on facebook.com 

and got more than 6,000 shares on Google+.

But all it is, is the sound of a heavy, falling rain.

Many people find it quite peaceful and relaxing.

I also found a February 21, 2013 item 

published on the web site for The Guardian, a British newspaper. 

It is called "From the Archive, 21 February 1946:

In Praise of English ... Rain"

and is written by one Alison Bayley under the title "Writing about Rain."

In it, she quotes a line from a soldier far from home who wrote:

I would give worlds for the sight of any rainy English street.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

In describing rain,

Bayley's essay makes reference to Algernon Charles Swinburne's 

"Atalanta," in which he writes:

When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces

the mother of months in meadow or plain

Fills the shadows and windy places with

lisp of leaves and ripple of rain ...

Bayley also cites George Meredith's poem "Love in the Valley"

in which he writes of his infatuation with a beautiful young woman:

Nowhere is she seen, and if I see her nowhere,

lighting may come, straight rains and tiger sky.

photo by CynthiaNaniOkeefe, courtesy of morguefile.com

And she  mentions the well-known lines said by Portia, 

in William Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice":

The quality of mercy is not strain'd

it droppeth as the gentle rain of heaven ...

So, let's sum up:

rain can be peaceful and relaxing.

It can come to us in ripples or straight lines.

And it can "droppeth" gently.

photo by bella_domanie courtesy of morguefile.com

But I think above all, I prefer the description of rain 

provided by e. e. cummings

in his poem "somewhere I have never travelled, glady beyond":

(I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;

only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

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