ALL day the air triumphs with its two voices Of wind and rain As loud as if in anger it rejoices, Drowning the sound of earth That gulps and gulps in choked endeavour vain To swallow the rain.
Half the night, too, only the wild air speaks With wind and rain, Till forth the dumb source of the river breaks And drowns the rain and wind, Bellows like a giant bathing in mighty mirth The triumph of earth.
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📖 About this poem
Edward Thomas builds this short poem out of weather and patience. For most of it, wind and rain rule the air, so loud and constant that the earth itself seems to be struggling beneath them, gulping at the downpour like something drowning. Then, quietly, the poem turns: underground, unseen, a river has been gathering strength, and it finally breaks through with a bellow that outroars the storm entirely. The music helps carry this shift — short, insistent phrases mimicking the wind's relentlessness, then a wider, freer rhythm when the source finally erupts. The image of earth "bellowing like a giant bathing in mighty mirth" is the poem's real payoff, turning sound and struggle into sudden, joyful power. It still lands because it captures something true about pressure and release, about quiet forces that outlast louder ones — a small nature poem that feels, in the end, like a lesson in patience and hidden strength.
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