It's time to patter songs about the rain (Edit 1 Thanks to all who commented).

[Brownlie]

You can listen to a computer read it here: https://www.yakitome.com/tts?a=T&b=872625&c=nye6Y3czFFVg&d=T (I can't believe the obsession has gotten to that level. )

It’s time to patter on about the rain,
To browse inside a book that’s old and dead,
And seek to pinch some life from off a page. I'm not getting the connection between the two refrain lines

I hear the gentle drops outside again,
I need to find a reason to get dressed,
It’s time to patter on about the rain.

I’ve never even flailed a wheaten grain.WTF?
But I’ll write my pen’s a tool to thresh,meter is off in this line
And seek to pinch some life from off a page.'from off' sounds a bit clumsy to me

They say to speak a truth and write more plain.they tell me?
While “Hey Ho’s” spin inside and tell my head,
It’s time to patter on about the rain.

The glutted droppings circle down the Drain.
I’ll add a line about a fatal thread,
And seek to pinch some life from off a page.

I heard the constant ticking hands arranged,
To tell me when to wake or sleep and said,
It’s time to patter on about the rain,
And seek to pinch some life from off a page.

Billy has already touched on most of the points I thought of raising, so I'll just add:

It's a great temptation, when writing in meter, to use a lot of 'little words' to fill in the beats and keep it constant. In your first stanza you repeat 'to' and 'and' enough to bug me.

Thanks for posting this - you must be British, to use the weather as a background - and especially rain.

Well, the robot is British I'm actually American. No one's getting the villanelle's connection to pastoral poetry, and the poem poking fun at Heaney's Digging! Well, I should probably scratch it then. I suppose the idea of patter as empty poetic jargon is also a stretch. Thanks for commenting, very useful.