The tears that fall from our eyes are certainly a clear depiction of all the pain that we had to endure, but the ones that fall from our hearts are even more painful than that! Perhaps in the hope of finding some answers.The most painful tears are not the ones that fall from your eyes and cover your face, rather they are the ones that fall from your heart and cover your soul. This poem reads as a moment in which he has finally had enough and is ready to reach out to another. He says the “worst pain” is not knowing “why without” suffering from a broken heart or “disdain” his “heart has such pain!” The speaker is frustrated and upset by his own emotional state. It is not just his grief that is harming him though, but the fact that he doesn’t know where it is coming from. The speaker states that his pain is the “worst” he has ever known by far. He does not want a reader to go away thinking that he was not suffering as much as he was. In the last four lines, the speaker makes sure to emphasize the reality of his pain. He reiterates in the last line that his “grief” is “without reason.” He questions his own lack of “treason.” The speaker has not been betrayed or done anything resembling betrayal. Through the next lines, the speaker makes it clear that he is as bothered by this as a reader might be. All he is able to tell his listeners is that his “heart” is “disheartened.” There is something wrong within him that makes him feel sad when he has no clear reason to.

Now, he is admitting he’s not sure why he’s crying in his heart. The first line states that his tears are “without reason.” This comes as a surprise as he seemed so set in his grief in the previous two quatrains. There is not a clear “reason,” (a word which is repeated twice in this stanza) for his unhappiness. It quickly becomes clear that the speaker himself is unsure why he feels the way he does. The second half of the poem provides the reader with a little more information about the source of the speaker’s grief. Its persistence is becoming a part of his everyday life. It has created a kind of “song” in his environment. Or instead, remind him that his pain is still there. The rain is falling to earth and coming to him as if to comfort him. Although he still feels hurt (from what the reader doesn’t know) but it has been calmed some by the passage of time.įrom where he is in his home he can hear the rain on the “roofs” and “on the ground.” It lands softly but he can hear it all the same. This is a clear reference to the speaker’s own emotional state. Instead, it comes lightly and consistently. It is not the pounding storm that it could’ve been. In the second quatrain, the speaker returns to the rain that is falling all around him. He asks what the “numb hurt” is that “enters heart.” New emotions, less poignant, but still present, are consuming him. It is only posed in an effort to explain the speaker’s own situation more easily. The question is rhetorical in that he does not really want an answer. In the next two lines, the speaker asks the reader a question. It is as if the whole world is sharing in his grief. The speaker is seeing his own emotions projected out from his heart onto the landscape of his town. While the “tears” for his loss are falling in his “heart” there is also rain falling “on the town.” Here is the first juxtaposition between the two different types of water. This is a perfect representation of how the speaker feels. When it is raining, the drops are innumerable and it seems as if they will never stop. Verlaine chose the element of rain to mirror the emotions associated with tears, but also for its unceasing nature. He states that “tears fall in heart.” The image of water, whether in the form of tears or rain, will be repeated throughout the verses. In the first stanza of this piece, the speaker begins by utilizing the line which would later become the title of the poem. There is no clear answer to his grief, a fact that greatly frustrates him.Īnalysis of Tears Fall in My Heart Stanza One In the second half of the poem it’s clear that the speaker does not understand why he is in such pain. Although the hurt remains, he starts to become numb. As the rain lightens up and begins to touch the ground softly, so does his pain. These two features of his world are interchangeable. The poem begins with the speaker stating that there is rain falling outside and tears falling in his heart. ‘ Tears Fall in My Heart’ by Paul Verlaine describes the emotional condition of a speaker who does not understand why he is feeling unhappy.

Tears are falling hearts are breaking