Quote of the Day (Langston Hughes, on the ‘Little Sleep Song’ of April Rain)

“The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.”—African-American poet, librettist, translator, and fiction writer Langston Hughes (1901-1967), “April Rain Song,” originally published in 1921, reprinted in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel (1994)
 
I had a somewhat different reaction to overnight rain than Langston Hughes did: I awoke to hear its soft patter outside my window this morning, rather than falling asleep to it.
 
But I recalled that I had just heard yesterday about this poem. It’s a lovely set of verses (only five more lines than you see here) and easy to find on the Internet. I urge anyone who’s never encountered it to look it up.