Sara Teasdale was an American poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She died in 1933. She was admired and acclaimed for her lyrical poetry, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1918. This is perhaps her most famous poem, a piece that describes a beautiful natural world that is indifferent to human conflict. A world that might be better off if, in fact, spring should arrive some day to find us gone.
There Will Come Soft Rains (War Time)
by Sara Teasdale
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
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.
"And not one will know of the war, not one
ReplyDeleteWill care at last when it is done..."
I like this line a lot. I wish we humans, since we can and do think, thought a little more about the other living things on this planet.
What a good poem. I really like Teasdale's poetry.
ReplyDeleteI have not previously read it, Dorothy, but it will be imprinted on me forever. It is nothing short of prophetic.
ReplyDeleteA deceptively simple poem, expressing so much. Thank you for sharing it, Dorothy.
ReplyDeleteWhoa what a thought. WWI must have been on her mind ... and things seem equally dark today ...
ReplyDeleteI was introduced to this poem as a young teen reading a book called The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. One chapter, originally a short story published in 1950, was called There Will Come Soft Rains whose protagonist was an automated house (run by what we would now call AI) , the only house left standing in Allendale, California, a city destroyed by an atomic bomb. The house recites the poem, not realizing that its occupants were killed in the bomb blast, and says the poem was a favorite of the woman of the house. This poem, and the story, had such an impact on me. Incidentally, the date the story takes place is given by the AI as August 4, 2026. (The story can be read for free online and I highly recommend it.)
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