Rain

I

Effective dark stillness, shaken light, Makes the through-wind senseless, Wanders empty and echoes of restlessly, Embroidered upon your coat, Threaded with rich pasts, Seeding life before it gets netted.

II

Pelting diamonds down from shivering clouds, An insistent beat, how time pulses, Whining out beak-like at my window. My spirit burrows deep in the woods.

III

Let it happen, you know, I love The grey-glossed world of sullen rainfall. And while the silence opens like rapture, You see all bare and unmasked.

• Ted Hughes