These are no idle tears That dance into my eyes As sudden raindrops do From out the darkened skies.
These tears have soaked through All my being in their flow Of cleansing power, And every sentient Earthly woe That would my soul devour, Is drowned by them and disappears.
Anna M. Johnson's "Tears" starts by correcting a misunderstanding. The speaker's crying isn't casual or sentimental. Right away she rejects the idea of "idle tears" that appear as suddenly as raindrops from a dark sky, and insists these ones mean something.
What they mean, the second stanza explains, is release. The tears pour through her whole being like a flood, and their "cleansing power" sweeps away the earthly sorrows that threatened to "devour" her soul. Crying here isn't weakness or defeat; it works almost like a ritual washing, leaving her lighter than before.
The mood is quiet and relieved rather than despairing. Water carries the poem from start to finish, first as rain, then as a purifying flow, and the final line lets the troubles "disappear" as if dissolved. The poem suggests that the speaker has already come through something painful and can now look back on her tears with a kind of grateful calm.