Lyric Poem · Nature
The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face
1In that desolate land and lone,
2Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
3Roar down their mountain path,
4By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
5Muttered their woes and griefs
6And the menace of their wrath.
7"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
8"Revenue upon all the race
9Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
10And the mountains dark and high
11From their crags re-echoed the cry
12Of his anger and despair.
13In the meadow, spreading wide
14By woodland and riverside
15The Indian village stood;
16All was silent as a dream,
17Save the rushing a of the stream
18And the blue-jay in the wood.
19In his war paint and his beads,
20Like a bison among the reeds,
21In ambush the Sitting Bull
22Lay with three thousand braves
23Crouched in the clefts and caves,
24Savage, unmerciful!
25Into the fatal snare
26The White Chief with yellow hair
27And his three hundred men
28Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
29But of that gallant band
30Not one returned again.
31The sudden darkness of death
32Overwhelmed them like the breath
33And smoke of a furnace fire:
34By the river's bank, and between
35The rocks of the ravine,
36They lay in their bloody attire.
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“The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/the-revenge-of-rain-in-the-face
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Length
- 48 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Death & Loss, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 48 lines · 8 sestets
- Line length
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- PoetryDBThe Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 74cc0fa39ca8dacb…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.