The poem "Rain," by Edward Thomas, relies heavily on imagery to set the scene as well as the mood for

the poem. The poem is the strongest where imagery is being used to explain the speaker's mood as opposed to expository language. The main image in the poem is rain. Rain is relatable to all of the senses and Thomas uses all of the senses to flesh out the speaker's experience. The image of rain has unfortunately become very clich, but it is perhaps one of the best images for evoking feelings of solitude and sorrow. Through these images I believe the experience being explored through the poem is that of a soldier at war anticipating his death. In the first lines of the poem we are introduced to the image of rain, which will serve as the frame for the entire poem. Even though the first line contains only three phrases the entire mood of the poem is encompassed here. Thomas writes "Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain." The repetition of the word rain creates the image of rain that is surrounding the speaker on all sides. Through the categorization of the rain as "midnight rain" and "wild rain", we see the image of a night storm, which sets the scene for the poem. The image of rain created in these lines is an image of inescapable and unstoppable rain. Later in the poem we will see that the speaker feels as if his death is inescapable and unstoppable. In the next lines the image of rain is used to widen the scope of the setting and also to emphasize the speaker's feeling of loneliness. When Thomas says "On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me," he uses the image of rain falling on a hut to show us where the speaker is. The image of rain falling on the hut also emphasizes the speaker's awareness of the rain falling on the hut. His awareness and focus reinforce the idea of solitude almost to the point where the word solitude is unnecessary. In the fourth and fifth lines of the poem Thomas continues to use the sense of hearing, but then moves into the sense of touch. He says, "And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks/For washing me cleaner than I have been." The fourth line uses the image of rain in reference to sound in order to explore the experience of death. Here Thomas is showing the experience as one without sound. The speaker will no longer hear the rain and the rain will no longer hear him. In the next line the image of rain continues to stray from literal contexts. While rain is representative of water, which is used for cleaning, this is not the meaning of these lines. The lines instead seem to refer to the experience of baptism. In the next line the image of rain continues to relate to the sense of touch, but also sight. In the line, "Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon," the repetition of the word rain provides an image of rain falling. The line also delves farther into the speaker's thoughts on death. The image of rain falling on the dead reinforces the idea that the experience being portrayed in this poem is that of a soldier. Although this image could relate to rain falling on a gravesite, it seems to refer more to soldiers who have died in combat because the line seems to be saying that the rain falls directly on them. The image of rain and idea of the dead being blessed also seems to refer to fallen soldiers because now they can be at peace. In the next three lines Thomas relates the image of rain back to sound. He says, "But here I pray that none whom once I loved/Is dying to-night or lying still awake/Solitary, listening to the rain." In these lines the pain of dying is equated with the pain of listening to the endless rain. Through the image of the rain keeping someone awake we see that the soldier cannot sleep because the rain is keeping him awake. The image of being kept awake by the rain could also be related to death. Once again as the rain is unstoppable, so is death. Thinking about the rain might not be keeping the speaker awake, but rather thinking about death. In these lines the speaker tells the reader he would not wish his current circumstances on anyone else as he would not wish death on a person. In the next lines of the poem the imagery drifts away from rain but in the fifteenth line we return to the rain imagery. In the lines, "Like me who have no love which this wild rain/Has not dissolved except the love of death," we move back into the sense of touch in regards to the image of rain. These lines show us that the speaker is not so much afraid of death as anticipating it. The image of rain can be seen as leading up to death. Perhaps the speaker is thinking that when the rain stops, death will come. The image of rain is again used to show the image of washing. Here the speaker has been washed so much by the rain that all that's left is his sense of anticipation. Categorizing the rain here as wild is again to set the scene of a storm, but also to show the storm within his mind. In the last two lines the scope is widened to give us a final image of the storm surrounding the soldier, but also his internal storm. In the lines "If love it be towards what is perfect and Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint," the use of the word tempest, which means a violent storm, moves the image of rain from a small scope on the hut or on the bodies of the dead to a huge storm all around. In these lines we see that rain has in a sense become his companion as we are alerted to a sort of dialogue with the rain as if the rain has been speaking to him. These lines, like previous ones seem to show that the end of the rain symbolizes the onset of the speaker's death. According to the words "cannot disappoint" the rain is telling the speaker that death is certain.

Through the course of the poem and especially the use of the image of rain we are given a look at the experience of a soldier at war. Although the poem never actually says the speaker is a soldier, I believe the setting for the poem as well as the images relating to death relate this to the reader. The idea of being constantly exposed to rain evokes images for me of a soldier at war. In this poem rain not only embodies the overall mood of the poem, but specific details and feelings regarding what the speaker is experiencing. Without the image of rain this poem would be nothing, but a collection of expository feelings.