JAWAHAR NAVODAYA VIDYALAYA,

LUDHIANA

ENGLISH PROJECT
[VOICE OF THE RAIN
BY Walt Whitman]

NIKHIL PRATAP
XI COMMERCE
SESSION 2022-2023
 acknowledgement

In successfully completing this project, many

people have helped me. I would like to thank all
those who are related to this project.
Primarily, I would thank God for being able to
complete this project with success. Then I will
thank my Principal MR. JITENDER BHAKOO
and MR. SUKHDEEPRAJ, under whose
guidance I learned a lot about this project. His
suggestions and directions have helped in the
completion of this project.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents and
friends who have helped me with their valuable
suggestions and guidance and have been very
helpful in various stages of project completion.

NIKHIL PRATAP
XI COMMERCE
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project is titled “THE
VOICE OF THE RAIN”. This project is submitted
by NIKHIL PRATAP .This project was an authentic
work done by him under my supervision and
guidance.
This project has not been submitted to any other
institution.

Date:01.11.2022
MR. SUKHDEEP RAJ
(name of project guide)
JNV LUDHIANA
(Name of institution)
INTRODUCTION OF THE
POET

Walter Whitman ( May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American
poet, essayist and journalist.
Born in Huntington on Long Island, as a child and through much of his
career he resided in Brooklyn. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go
to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a
government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass,
was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well
known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person
with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his
death in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington,
D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often
focused on both loss and healing. On the death of Abraham Lincoln,
whom Whitman greatly admired, he wrote his well known poems, "O
Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures. After a stroke towards the end
of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health
further declined. When he died at age 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Mary Whitall Smith
Costelloe argued: "You cannot really understand America without Walt
Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization,
'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history
can do without him."Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman
"America's poet ... He is American…

THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

THE TWO VOICES:
And who art thou? said I to the softfalling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here
translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain

It appears that a dramatic conversation between the poet

and the soft drizzles of the rain begins:
The poet as if in the middle of a conversation asks the rain
who he is.
It is quite strange that the poet receives an answer. The
poet attempts to interpret it for the reader:
It is interpreted as the rain replying to the poet that he is
the “Poem of Earth”.

The Unstoppable and Eternal

Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the
bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether
changed, and yet the same,
The rain continues to speak:
It says that it rises upward, towards the sky from the deep
sea and land in an undefinable form - water vapour.
It gets formed as clouds, completely different from what it
was, still maintaining the essence of its being.
These expressions are a direct reference to the process of
water cycle.

Rain: the Provider, Sustainer and Redeemer

I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the
globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent,
unborn.

Here comes the third stage of water cycle, where in the

evaporated and condensed water vapour pours down as
rain.
When it rains, they say, it pours. The rain comes down to
fulfill the dearth of water (referred here as drauth).
It washes away every tiny speck of accumulated layers of
dust on earth;
It enables and nourishes the dormant seeds.
The seeds without rain would remain Covert and waiting
to come to life.
Pay Back in the Same Coin
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to
my own origin, and make pure and beautify it
The rain keeps giving back life to the origin that gave
birth to rain itself; namely, the earth.
It keeps replenishing the earth, beautifying it making
it immaculate and livable.
Gratitude- An Attitude
These two lines of the poem speak about the
power of giving back to the source.
As the earth is, so the rain is and vice versa
Giving back to the source can be a joyful and
fulfilling.
Rain gives back to the earth munificently by
purifying, beautifying and replenishing it.
The Voice of the Rain Summary –
In the poem, the poet asks the soft-falling shower, ‘Who
are you?’ to which she replies that she is the poem of
earth. It is a strange thing for the rain to reply to the poet.
The rain told the poet that she cannot be touched as she
rises in the form of water vapor in the sky from the land
and the bottomless sea. It changes its shape yet it remains
the same. The vapor changes into clouds due to
condensation.
It falls back on the surface of the earth to provide water to
the drought-prone areas and to beautify and purify the
earth (its birthplace). It provides life to the seeds inside the
earth and helps them grow.
The rain doesn’t care if anyone bothers about her deeds or
not, she completes her work and comes back home. The
poet also compares the rain with a song as they both share
a common journey. The song originates from the heart of
the singer, travels across to fulfill the aim and comes back
with due love for the singer (its originator).
DIFFICULT WORDS:
Who art thou – Who are you
Eternal – never-ending
Impalpable – which cannot be described
Whence – where
Vaguely – not clearly
Descend – come down
Lave – wash; bathe
Atomics – small particles
Latent – hidden/buried

literary devices:
Personification – the poet used a non-living thing
as a living thing in the poet
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain
Metaphor – an indirect comparison between the
qualities of different things
I am the Poem of Earth – rain is being compared
to a poem
Hyperbole – exaggerated statements
Bottomless sea
Imagery – visual description of something
Soft-falling shower