The poem The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells the story of
an older man who is having one of many depressing days. He is depressed
because his youth is lost, yet he continues to dwell on the past instead
of looking to the future. Eventually he realizes that everyone has
sorrowful moments in their life, and must learn to deal with them and
move on. At the end of the poem he develops a sense of hope, which is
one of the themes of the poem. The speaker is speaking directly to the
reader in 3rd person omniscient point of view. The tone of the poem is
gloomy and dark, but at the end the speaker finds hope and the tone
changes to hopeful because he realizes that this kind of thing must
happen to everyone and he has to learn to deal with it.
