Fragment: Rain
The fitful alternations of the rain, When the chill wind, languid as with pain Of its own heavy moisture, here and there Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fitful alternations of the rain, When the chill wind, languid as with pain Of its own heavy moisture, here and there Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.
In these four lines, Shelley captures a bleak, rainy moment. The rain doesn’t fall steadily—it comes in “fitful alternations,” pushed by a chill wind that seems almost sick with exhaustion, “languid as with pain.” The wind is weighed down by its own “heavy moisture,” as if the dampness itself is a…
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