Poem 3 - Rain on the Roof

This article will help you to learn about the summary, characters, literary devices and themes used in Class 9 Beehive Chapter 3. You will also find NCERT Solutions for Class 9 English Beehive Chapter 3 here at UrbanPro.

Synopsis

The poem, ‘Rain on the roof’ deals with the effect rainfall has over the author. It portrays the author’s appreciation of natural rainfall and the range of emotions he goes through. The poet starts with how joyful he feels when the black clouds come together at night, and it starts to rain. He compares the raindrops top tears falling from the black clouds because they are sad.

The sound that can be heard when raindrops hit the earth is quite similar to his heartbeat. On the shingles, he feels the sound of the rain. This sound of the rain makes him feel like he is dreaming. The sound of the rain falling outside, lets him enjoy his imagination. Listening to the sound of the raindrops further takes him back on a trip down memory lane. It makes him think of how his mother used to come to his room to check up on him and his siblings before they went to bed and how she bent down to kiss him goodnight. Rain brings out the purest of emotions from within the heart.

Along with the thought of his mother and his siblings, the poet also has the thought about a girl whom he loved a lot. However, she did not reciprocate it back. Along with good memories, rain also brings sad memories back. Lastly, the poet compares the sound of rain to a lot of musical pieces that have been composed by great artists.

Character List 

Following are the characters of the poem:

• The poet

• His mother

• His siblings

• His long lost love

Literary/ Poetic Devices used 

1. Rhyme scheme: A B C B D E F E. This means that words at the end of line 1, 3, 5 and 7 do not rhyme, while words at the end of line 2 and 4, and 6 and 8 rhyme.

2. Alliteration: Same sound is repeated in two or more than two consecutive words.

• ‘Humid Hover’ – the sound that is being repeated is ‘h’.

• ‘starry spheres’ – the sound that is being repeated is ‘s’.

• ‘press pillow’-the sound that is being repeated is ‘p’.

• ‘lie listening’ – the sound that is being repeated is ‘l’.

• ‘their thread’ – ‘th’ sound is being repeated

• ‘rain roof’ – ‘r’ sound is being repeated

• ‘memory my mother’ – ‘m’ sound is being repeated

• ‘Darling dreamers’ – ‘d’ sound is being repeated

3. Onomatopoeia: It denotes the use of words defining a particular sound.

Words like ‘patter’ and ‘tinkle’ are known as onomatopoeia. In this poem, these words describe the noise of the raindrop falling down.

4. Personification: This denotes the treatment of a non-living entity as a living entity.

Darkness has been personified by comparing it with sadness. He has personified the recollection by saying that they weave the dream.

5. Transferred Epithet: when an adjective is used with a noun while referring to another noun.
   In ‘melancholy darkness’, it is the people who have been referred to as melancholy and not darkness itself. The term ‘dreamy fancies’, does not mean that the fancies are dreamy but refers to the people who have dreams.

Theme

The main theme of this poem is how a natural phenomenon such as rainfall can make the author go through such an emotional joyride. Happy memories to sad memories; and the lynching onto the happy memories while leaving the tragic memories behind is how the author evolves.

To find out Rain on the Roof Extra Questions and Answers, Rain on the Roof poem PDF can be referred to.