About the Poet and the Poem

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist, widely regarded as the father of modern free verse. His life's work, the ever-growing collection Leaves of Grass, broke away from strict rhyme and metre and celebrated nature, the dignity of the ordinary person, democracy and the deep bond between the self and the universe. His poems often let the natural world speak in its own voice.

The Voice of the Rain is a short lyric written in Whitman's characteristic free verse. The poet looks at a soft-falling shower and, half in wonder, asks it who it is. Surprisingly, the rain answers back. In its reply the rain calls itself the "Poem of Earth" and describes its endless journey — rising unseen from the land and the sea, climbing to the sky, changing form yet remaining the same, and then falling back to wash the parched earth and give life to seeds that lay hidden and unborn. In doing so, the rain returns life to the very place it came from and makes it pure and beautiful.

The poem is built on personification (the rain is given a human voice) and on the idea of a life-giving cycle. In the final two lines, placed within brackets, Whitman draws a quiet parallel between the rain and a song (or poem): both rise from a source, travel out to fulfil their purpose, and — whether noticed or not — return with love to their origin.