13 April 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 1

There Will Come Soft Rains

(War Time)



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.

About the author:

1884-1933. Sara Teasdale won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize in 1918 for Love Songs, which also won the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America. Although the popularity of her work declined considerably in the second half of the 20th century, it has received renewed interest in recent years. Learn more about the life and work of Sara Teasdale at Wikipedia.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Sara Teasdale at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 1, where "There Will Come Soft Rains" ran on April 13, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry, classic, rhyme.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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