Today it rains and rains, it rains like never,
But only in my heart; for it is dry,
Dry in the world of parched illusions, all
Vanished and vanquished, by evaporation
As though beneath the sun’s gaze starved of that
Which otherwise would have sustained them, moist,
Loving and fertile, in a world of wet.
No, there is something like a gentle rain
Descending in my heart, and casting up
The odors in their sweetness of a grief
Which I cannot contain, and with my tears
Which I refuse to honor: for they fall
Not in my anguish, though I weep and weep
But only in my words. My very soul
Has failed to understand the truth of death,
And worse, the truth of this degeneration
Of all the pure and wholesome to disease.
There is no comprehension, only facts--
Facts which benumb the mind, as stares agog
Unrivaled in its interest, yet no tyro,
Amazed, appalled, as “underneath the boot”
The spirit ekes away, and there is death,
Everywhere death, not death in implication
Rotting and awful, but in its decay
Promising but the sweetness of a lack
Of further torment, pain—and in this drouth
The mouth cries out in sorrow, words half clever:
Today it rains and rains, it rains like never.
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