Column: Longfellow was correct: Into each life some rain must fall

It’s not the obvious canard I once considered it to be.

Rather, it’s a statement of fact — and faith.

My mother employed the aphorism in my youth to steel me against loss and pain. She declared with certainty something I’ve long since considered a thoughtful but shallow observation: “Into every life some rain must fall.”

Banal, huh?

There was another phrase by the same author that Mom also delighted in quoting. It began: “On the shores of Gitche Gumee …”

But, as to that “rain must fall” phrase, there’s truth to it. And I’ve lived long enough to see that.

I’ve had the adage foisted upon me hundreds of times during my lifetime as, no doubt, have you. I’ve never given it serious consideration until recently. Over the years, when spoken in my direction, I managed to nod my head and look slightly bemused.

Fall the rain must and will / A proverb it’s not, but truth it contains still (forgive my lame rejoinder).

As you shall see, this saying is much more than I once assumed. It didn’t creep off the pages of Reader’s Digest into the popular culture. Nor did it appear with a baseball card and wedge of Bazooka Joe’s finest (bubble gum) under a protective cellophane wrapper.

No, it’s an authentic observation from the pen of American icon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow conceived it 177 years ago.

The year was 1841, and the 35-year-old poet wrote at his desk in Portland, Maine. The phrase is contained within the third stanza of Longfellow’s “The Rainy Day.”

As he peered from the window of his writing room he composed this stanza:

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining / Behind the clouds is the sun still shining / thy fate is the common fate of all / Into each life some rain must fall / Some days must be dark and dreary.”

I have a writing room in my house. It’s my refuge. Writers go to such places to think and compose.

Longfellow had a writing tablet — a kind of pre-20th century laptop – that he used at his writing platform and took with him on his travels. I have a well-worn MacBook that I pound in my writing room, and also in hotel rooms and ship’s cabins.

I don’t know much about Longfellow. Certainly not like I know the Brits William Blake, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelly and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Let’s see, I studied Longfellow in the 10th grade — maybe 11th — whilst never opening my anthology a single time.

Appalling.

I took two British literature and two Shakespeare classes in college (earning four As). I know more about the Brits than I do my countryman.

My wife, Hedy, on the other hand, is a graduate of Longfellow Elementary in Pasadena. To this day she calls forth Wadsworthian nuggets (we refer to them as “nuggies”). She repeats such gems as: “Youth comes but once in a lifetime,” “The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day” and “There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.”

And, of course, “Into each life some rain must fall.”

Clearly an optimist, some have labeled Longfellow a goody two-shoes. Not me. I respect him. Besides, he was human. He experienced dark moments. His father, mother and brother all died within a two-year span. His first wife died after a miscarriage; his second died horrifically in a fire. His son was badly wounded at Gettysburg.

Longfellow was shattered.

A sentimental man, he was much beloved by 19th century Americans. He was, in fact, this nation’s favorite poet, and an international celebrity.

He studied in Europe and took a professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin College. He later taught at Harvard.

No cranky secularist, Longfellow, in his 1863 poem, “Christmas Bells,” penned the faith-affirming: “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.”

He became the first American to have his bust placed in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. His poetry bears an anti-materialism message that resonates with today’s audiences.

Like a favored uncle, he reminds us gently: We’ve not been promised a rose garden.

Jim Carnett, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.