Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Wednesday, July 7th, 2021.

Today's poem is by American poet Emily Dickinson. She lived from 1830 to 1886, and of course is one of the most notable of all American poets.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called Like Rain It Soundeth, and it goes like this.

Like rain it soundeth till it curved. And then I knew t'n't was wind. It walked as wet as any wave,

but swept as dry as sand.

When it had pushed itself away to some remotest plain, a coming of the hosts was heard,

and that indeed was rain.

It filled the wells.

It pleased the pools.

It warbled in the road.

It pulled the spigot from the hills and let the floods abroad.

It loosened acres, lifted seas, the sights of centers stirred.

Then like Elijah rode away upon a wheel of cloud.

So this is a lovely, dramatic, layered poem by Emily Dickinson.

Of course, at the end, we're given a really deep sense of what the themes of this poem are meant to be.

The first two-thirds of it, I would say, are heavy on mood, heavy, heavy on mood.

And given the idea that we are in the middle of summer and here in the south,

occasionally hit by those wonderful summer storms of varying severity, it seemed like the right poem to read. But then at the end of the poem, we get the introduction

of some themes and the poem takes on a new level of depth. And that, of course, happens when,

in the last two lines we are given, then like Elijah rode away upon a wheel of cloud.

This, of course, is an allusion to Elijah in the Bible,

the prophet who in his battle against Bail and against Ahab and Jezebo brings calls down to the power

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