The Rain Is Raining All Around Lyrics
Four lines follow the rain from the field and the tree, to the umbrellas here, to the ships out at sea. Robert Louis Stevenson called the poem simply Rain, and most people know it by its first line.
The Rain Is Raining All Around
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/the-rain-is-raining-all-around/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Read slowly with a patter, tapping fingers on the table for the raindrops
- Best for ages
- 2 to 7 years
What Does The Rain Is Raining All Around Mean?
The poem moves outward in three steps. First the rain falls "on field and tree", which is the countryside around. Next it "rains on the umbrellas here", which is where the speaker stands, so the view comes close. The last line travels far off, "on the ships at sea". So a rainy day is the same rain over everything: green fields, umbrellas and ships.
The first line is a small joke with words. Rain is a noun, but here it also does the raining: "the rain is raining". It sounds silly and exact at the same time, and children enjoy saying it. Only the second and fourth lines rhyme: tree and sea.
It is a good poem for a wet afternoon, because it does not complain about the weather. It simply says where the rain is and lets the listener picture each place.
This poem is not the nursery rhyme Rain, Rain, Go Away and not the one about It's Raining, It's Pouring. Those ask the rain to stop or tell a story, while this one just watches it.
History and Origin
In Stevenson's 1885 collection the poem is titled just Rain. This page uses its first line as the title so that it is not mixed up with the nursery rhymes about rain.
Learning Activities
- Patter: tap fingertips on a table, softly for drizzle and hard for a downpour, while the poem is read.
- Near and far: draw three small pictures of rain: on a field with a tree, on umbrellas, and on ships at sea.
- Puddle watch: after rain, look at what the puddles show and how they change as the drops fall in.
- Umbrella parade: walk in a line under real umbrellas while someone reads the second line again and again.