Shalom Hills International School

Class IX
Rain on the Roof-1
Coates Kinney(24th Nov, 1826 – 25th January 1904) was an American poet, journalist, lawyer
and a politician. He was born in Penn Yan, New York and studied in Antioch College. He became
an established poet with the publication of his poem ‘Rain on the Roof’ written in six stanzas
expressing his feelings on a rainy evening as memories flood his mind.
The theme of the poem is the healing power of rain. The musical sound of raindrops falling
on the rooftop at night has the ability to revive sweet memories and rouse fancies in an
otherwise busy mind. The rain thus soothes and comforts an overworked mind by taking it
back to its lovely past.
Message- The poem gives us the message that nature and rainfall has a therapeutic effect on
humans. The sound of rain brings back beautiful memories from the past as the poet recalls
the soothing affection of his mother’s presence during his childhood.
The rhyme scheme of the poem is abcbdefe. The second and the fourth lines rhyme and the
sixth and the eighth lines rhyme.
Literary devices used in ‘Rain on the Roof’
Alliteration – (Repetition of the consonant)
humid shadows hover, starry spheres, press the pillow, cottage- chamber, lie-listening, busy-
being, their air- threads, rain on the roof, memory comes my mother, darling dreamers, them
till
Transferred epithet- (When an adjective is used to describe a noun but it actually refers to
another noun)
Melancholy darkness – here the darkness is not sad but the people are.
Dreamy fancies – here the person is dreamy and not the fancies.
Onomatopoiea – words formed from the sound it represents used for literary effect
Patter,tinkle
Personification – (human characteristics given to inanimate objects)
Darkness is melancholy and weeping like a sad person.
Recollections are weaving air-threads like a weaver.
Hyperbole – (exaggerated statements)
a thousand recollections, a thousand dreamy fancies
Refrain-- Repetition of a line to give it a rhythmic effect
Enjabment-- No punctuation marks at the end of a line in a
stanza.