The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning. ~ James Dickey

April showers may mean May flowers, but they certainly mean that rain poems come to mind. What better way to spend a rainy spring afternoon than curled up, reading rain poems?

The sound of the falling rain is music to many a poet’s ear, as evidenced by the number of poems about rain.

Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644?-1694?) took advantage of haiku’s seasonal nature to pen this poem about the spring rain:

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) expounds further on the theme of rain in his beautiful “Beloved, let us once more praise the rain:”

While many poems rhapsodized on the beauty of a spring or summer rain, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) instead chose to recount “An Autumn Rain-Scene,” one that gives a much different impression of rain than the poems before:

According to Longfellow, the best thing we can do when it rains is let it rain – but let it rain rain poems, as well, so that we can understand Dickey’s assertion that the poet in the rain is hoping to be stricken, if only by inspiration…