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Long as endless threads, the long rain
Interminably, through the gray day,
Lines the green windowpanes with its long gray threads,
Infinitely, the rain,
The long rain,
The rain.
It tapers away like this, since last night,
From soft rags that hang,
In the gloomy and black sky.
It stretches out, patient and slow,
On the roads, since last night,
On the roads and the alleys,
Continual.
Along the leagues,
That go from the fields toward the suburbs,
By the interminably curved roads,
Pass, toiling, sweating, steaming,
In a funeral profile,
The teams, with their rounded tarpaulins;
In the regular ruts
So long parallel
That they seem, at night, to join the firmament,
The water drips, for hours;
And the trees weep and the dwellings,
Soaked as they are with long rain,
Tenaciously, undefined.
The rivers, through their rotten dikes,
Spill over the meadows,
Where drowned hay floats in the distance;
The wind slaps alders and walnut trees;
Sinisterly, in water up to mid-body,
Great black oxen bellow toward the twisted skies;
Evening approaches, with its shadows,
With which the plains and thickets are encumbered,
And it is still the rain
The long rain
Fine and dense, like soot.
The long rain,
The rain — and its identical threads
And its systematic nails
Weave the garment,
Stitch by stitch, of destitution,
For the houses and the enclosures
Of gray and old-fashioned villages:
Linen and rosaries of rags
That fray,
Along straight poles;
Blue dovecotes stuck to the roof;
Windowpanes, with, on their sinister glass,
A poultice of bistre paper;
Dwellings whose regular gutters
Form crosses on stone gables;
Mills planted uniform and gloomy,
On their hillock, like horns
Bell towers and neighboring chapels,
The rain,
The long rain,
During winter, assassinates them.
The rain,
The long rain, with its long gray threads.
With its hair of water, with its wrinkles,
The long rain
Of old countries,
Eternal and torpid!
Emile Verhaeren
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-rain-emile-verhaeren/