"There Will Come Soft Rains" -- Sara Teasdale
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool 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.
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5 comments:
Most of us remember this from the Ray Bradbury short story of the same name in The Martian Chronicles.
I like this poem. It is evocative and haunting, powerful but a little elusive.
Teasdale was from St. Louis and was a close friend of the poet Vachel Lindsay from over the River and up the road in Springfield, Illinois. Lindsay died by suicide in 1931, and Teasdale committed suicide in 1933.
You're rubbing off on me. I actually read some poetry yesterday.
As for the suicides, I suppose that too much raw truth is deadly if not softened by a little grace.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Or maybe it's bad company corrupts good character.
That comment applies to the poetry reading -- not the suicides.
Wish I could say I knew this poem or short story once upon a time, but now I can.
Thanks, Mushroom.
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