Classic Poem

It rains and then it rains and still it rains,
The village lost in rivers, lakes and fogs;
Misery groans and mutters, execrates
The flying winds that bring the shrunken earth
Another wave of moisture fathoms deep:
The necessary moiety for seeds
To split their sides with drinking and emerge
As corpulent as cabbages or monks.

But who dares squeeze his head above the ground;
What man inhabiting a mortal skin
And cramped, two-legged habits, has the skill,
Bravado and resistance to defy
An open window or a door, for clouds
To mystify, bewilder, madden, blind
With vertical, oblique, criss-crossing rain
Until the head, no longer dodging, break?

The mountains have a weary air and glower
At clouds that wind effeminate shawls and scarves
Of black and gray reiterated round
Their stony foreheads, eyes and silent mouths;
As if those peaks were women and the world
Frail Puritans from London dreading nudes,
Unless the body be masked and hooded safe
As ladies of Madrid who shyly veil
Their eyes and move behind dark draperies.

The people hide in houses, huddled close,
And have no talk to talk about who have
No topic which they haven't had before,
Each window like the rest, each view a sea.
And who can find surprise inside a room
Worn stupid, dull, monotonous and chill
With feet that know not where they go nor why,
Beating a rataplan upon a drum,
No matter where you beat it sounds the same?

And who would venture forth in search of themes
To twine discussion round when not a soul
Is on the road to tell you how it goes
Or doesn't go with him? And yet suppose
You chanced to meet so bold a vagabond —
Like some exotic blossom in the dusk —
Would he turn idiotic, lift his chin
Out of his neck to tell you miracles
Of how the slopes are dancing wild with fire:
Camellias and mimosas stormily drunk
Lighting the night with red and white and gold?

The rain is steady now, a metronome;
No pause or syncopation dams the flood;
Conformity is king, the sky a slave
To humdrum tedium men have christened God.
Go, put the kettle on the stove to boil
A pint of all this water from the soil,
And turn to China and a pinch of tea
To saturate our bleak monotony:
Italy's dead and dull, all Europe gray —
Take down that silken copy — Li Tai Po —
Open his drunken rivers, let them flow
And haul this junk, the Occident away!
Yes, light the lamp; let it provide the sun
That wars to finish hatreds have undone!