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words so much power; they are allowed to be built up within the poem itself. Beside these symbols are simple yet deeply descriptive words which work in a variety of ways to invoke broad images upon which the poem depends and make it much more universal. This feeling of universality in fact contributes to its impact.
The mood is established simply but with great effectiveness in the first line, and reinforced throughout the next two stanzas, but then the focus shifts inward to the actions inside the house. "September rain falls on the house," is a completely normal, low-to-middle register sentence that includes a great deal of implication. September is obviously a month, but all that is associated with September is also introduced by its use here. First of all, it is only the very beginning of fall. It's the time when the approach of autumn is first recognized, and the world begins to brace itself for the cold of the coming months. Equinoctial, in the next stanza, gives some indication that it may be late September already, placing the scene even nearer the colder seasons. The rain falling on the house reinforces September and equinoctial. Gentle oppression or possible collapse is implied by the phrase "falls on the house." Still, even in the first stanza bits like "failing light" and "old grandmother" are mixed in with "Little Marvel," jokes, and laughing. These little contradictions are everywhere in the poem, and give the impression of trying to escape the mood set by the first line. In line eleven, instead of screaming, howling, or even whistling, the kettle sings, while in the third stanza it sheds "small hard tears" which proceed to "dance like mad." At the same time, the rain that was first falling and then beating on the roof of the house begins dancing in the third stanza. The sense of struggling to get out from under some melancholy is inescapable.

One other matter that is relevant to the larger meaning of the poem as a whole is the introduction of the somewhat surreal elements into the work. As mentioned earlier, after the grandmother's almanac has been hung in its place, the tiny moons that indicate the cycle of lunar phases fall into the flower bed that the child has drawn. The moons' dropping is compared to the falling of tears. This whole situation in the sixth stanza expresses through symbolism and association what the grandmother seems to be coming to understand. Since the moons that fall like tears represent in the almanac the progress of

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