XLI.

Hafez :
Portrait of the Persian Poet Hafez (Khajeh Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez Shirazi)
(1320-1389)

“There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.”

― Hafiz, The Divan

Photo credit:  Pinterest / SuperStock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez

XL.

""It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain food and shelter; at length I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which had doubtless been built for the convenience of some shepherd. This was a new sight to me; and I examined the structure with great curiosity. Finding the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast. He turned on hearing a noise; and, perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and, quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable. His appearance, different from any I had ever before seen, and his flight, somewhat surprised me. But I was enchanted by the appearance of the hut: here the snow and rain could not penetrate; the ground was dry; and it presented to me then as exquisite and divine a retreat as Pandaemonium appeared to the daemons of hell after their sufferings in the lake of fire. I greedily devoured the remnants of the shepherd's breakfast, which consisted of bread, cheese, milk, and wine; the latter, however, I did not like. Then, overcome by fatigue, I lay down among some straw, and fell asleep.

"It was noon when I awoke; and, allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my travels; and, depositing the remains of the peasant's breakfast in a wallet I found, I proceeded across the fields for several hours, until at sunset I arrived at a village. How miraculous did this appear! the huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses, engaged my admiration by turns. The vegetables in the gardens, the milk and cheese that I saw placed at the windows of some of the cottages, allured my appetite. One of the best of these I entered; but I had hardly placed my foot within the door, before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country, and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the village. This hovel, however, joined a cottage of a neat and pleasant appearance; but, after my late dearly bought experience, I dared not enter it. My place of refuge was constructed of wood, but so low that I could with difficulty sit upright in it. No wood, however, was placed on the earth, which formed the floor, but it was dry; and although the wind entered it by innumerable chinks, I found it an agreeable asylum from the snow and rain.

"Here then I retreated, and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man." "

~Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein" - Originally published, 1818, in the United Kingdom and Ireland

XXVIII.

“It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. 

And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. 

Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. 

Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. 

Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. 

But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.” 

Dr. Seward's recollection of his conversation w/ Van Helsing ― Bram Stoker, Dracula

Analysis:

"...generally seen as a flaw in the novel is the tone of a passage that follows Lucy’s death and burial. Dr. Seward records in his diary his conversation with Van Helsing, who makes a lengthy speech, known as the “King Laugh” speech, to explain his laughter at this apparently inappropriate time. His laughter is caused by Arthur’s statement that he felt married to Lucy following the blood transfusion Van Helsing performed. Van Helsing and Seward know, as Arthur does not, that Lucy also received transfusions from the two of them and Morris. The function of this passage is not clear, but it does seem to contain symbolically important ideas concerning blood and marriage."  Source: novelexplorer.com

XXV.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

These famous words are the opening line from the first paragraph of the 1830 English novel entitled, Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The novel tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an well-to-do gentleman.

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

In actuality, the very first paragraph of the novel are NOT those exact words, but are the third stanza from a poem, written by George Crabbe, called The Parish Workhouse.   Crabbe was one the earliest of English realistic poets, called the "poet of the poor." In this case, Edward Bulwer-Lytton uses the third stanza of Crabbe's poem, after which he begins the famous line, "It was a dark and stormy night....":

"Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes,

Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;

Who press the downy couch while slaves advance

With timid eye, to read the distant glance;

Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease,

To name the nameless ever-new disease;

Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,

Which real pain and that alone can cure:

How would ye bear in real pain to lie,

Despised, neglected, left alone to die?

How would ye bear to draw your latest breath

Where all that’s wretched paves the way for death?"

Much debate still rages on as to whether Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a literary genius or simply a mediocre novelist.  Bulwer-Lytton's great-great-great grandson, defended his ancestor, stating that the writer is believed,

"to have been the first person to have penned a cliché was a mark of genius". He said that Bulwer-Lytton invented a raft of sayings we still use today, including "the pen is mightier than the sword", "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar"." - theguardian.com

Bulwer-Lytton also wrote the following novels:

Eugene Aram (1832) 

Godolphin (1833) 

The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) 

Leila: or The Siege of Granada (1838) 

Zanoni (1842) 

The Last of the Barons (1843) 

The Caxtons (1849) 

Vril (1871)

And, let us never forget Snoopy's parody....

..."and suddenly, a shot rang out!"

Here is the full first paragraph of Paul Clifford:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of the quartier in which they were situated, and tended inquiry for some article or another which did not seem easily to be met with. All the answers he received were couched in the negative; and as he turned from each door he muttered to himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his disappointment and discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added, "But if this vill do as vell, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice!" Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded that he thought the thing proffered might do as well; and thrusting it into his ample pocket, he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at the entrance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written "Thames Court." Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn or alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of face and person."

Denise Goodwin 8/22/15

XVII.

"It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that 

fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the 

depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day 

with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from 

a dirty sky."  ~Muriel Spark

"Suddenly all the sky is hid

As with the shutting of a lid,

One by one great drops are falling

Doubtful and slow,

Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,

And the wind breathes low;

Slowly the circles widen on the river,

Widen and mingle, one and all;

Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,

Struck by an icy rain-drop’s fall."

~James Russell Lowell, "Summer Storm," 1839

XV.

Prayers For Rain 

The Cure

You shatter me your grip on me a hold on me so dull it kills

You stifle me infectious sense of hopelessness and prayers for rain

I suffocate I breathe in dirt and nowhere shines but desolate

And drab the hours all spent on killing time again all waiting for the rain

You fracture me your hands on me a touch so plain so stale it kills

You strangle me entangle me in hopelessness and prayers for rain

I deteriorate I live in dirt and nowhere glows but drearily and tired

The hours all spent on killing time again all waiting for the rain

You fracture me your hands on me a touch so plain so stale it kills

You strangle me entangle me in hopelessness and prayers for rain

Prayers for rain

Prayers for rain

Prayers for rain

Songwriters

SMITH, ROBERT JAMES / GALLUP, SIMON / O'DONNELL, ROGER / THOMPSON, PORL / TOLHURST, LAURENCE ANDREW / WILLIAMS, BORIS

XIV.

Strange Days

“There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.

You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.

Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again. 

Whenever it rains you will think of her. ” 

― Neil Gaiman

XIII.

STILL FALLS THE RAIN
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell, 1940


Still falls the Rain---
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet

On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us---
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.

Still falls the Rain---
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side:
He bears in His Heart all wounds,---those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear---
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain---
Then--- O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune---
See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree

Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,---dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lain---
"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."

Dame Edith Sitwell was known for delivering dramatics, the most notable of which might be her practice of lying in an open coffin to prep for writing. -mentalfloss

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells.

Like her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell, Edith reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents, and lived for much of her life with her governess. She never married, but became passionately attached to the homosexual Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was unfailingly generous and helpful.

XII.

“It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell upon my head — and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation."

“The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.”

Quotes by Edgar Allen Poe

V.

The Rain Song

This is the springtime of my loving-

the second season I am to know

You are the sunlight in my growing-

so little warmth I've felt before.

It isn't hard to feel me glowing-

I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles-

flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.

Speak to me only with your eyes

it is to you I give this tune.

Ain't so hard to recognize-

These things are clear to all from

time to time. Ooooh...

Talk Talk-

I've felt the coldness of my winter

I never thought it would ever go

I cursed the gloom that set upon us...

But I know that I love you so

but I know that I love you so.

These are the seasons of emotion

And like the winds they rise and fall

This is the wonder of devotion-

I see the torch we all must hold.

This is the mystery of the quotient-

Upon us all a little rain

must fall, Just a little rain?

ooooh, yeah yeah yeah!

Artist:   Led Zeppelin

Album:   Houses Of The Holy