There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Originally published in Flame and Shadow (1920) by Sara Teasdale. Public domain.
Analysis
Written during and just after World War I, Teasdale’s lyric voice merges pastoral beauty with sober reflection on human conflict. The poem first appeared in Harper’s (1918) and was collected in Flame and Shadow (1920) with the subtitle “War Time.”
“There Will Come Soft Rains” imagines nature’s indifference to human catastrophe. The gentle music of couplets—swallows, frogs, robins—creates a consoling surface, yet the poem’s final turn is stark: spring would proceed even if humanity vanished.
Teasdale’s restraint intensifies the ethical sting; she offers no rhetoric of blame, only the quiet recognition that the natural world does not share our wars.