Reading Charles Darwin taught Teasdale the wider insignificance of humans and their wars.
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.” Sara Teasdale This poem is absolutely amazing!! I read it when I was in school and haven't been able to forget about it since! I will never stop recommending!! Sara Teasdale This is one of those poems that made me fall deeper in love with poetry. I came across this one quite a long time ago, and I still know every word by heart. I still go back to it every now and then, and I relish each verse as if reading it for the first time.
I’m definitely reading more of Sara Teasdale. Sara Teasdale I have arranged my takeaway thoughts on this poem into a haiku:
Building sand castles,
Mankind runs 'round in their games,
And assume their weight. Sara Teasdale Sara Teasdale's lyrical poem of six rhyming couplets envisions an idyllic post-apocalyptic time where nature continues peacefully and indifferently after man has “perished utterly” as a result of war. Teasdale included the subtitle War Time to underline that the poem takes place during World War I. The speaker emphasizes that if mankind destroys themselves in terrible warfare, nothing will change in the big scheme of things. Any man-made destruction will have no effect on the lives of frogs and sparrows. The speaker asserts, in plain language and crisp rhythm, the military casualties have no impact on the natural world. Even after seeing huge human battles, the poem emphasizes the serene natural order that remains undisturbed. 5 stars, I will be seeking more literature by Sara Teasdale. Sara Teasdale
Free read There Will Come Soft Rains
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done...
There Will Come Soft Rains is a short poem by Sara Teasdale, from the Flame and Shadow (1920) collection. It is a lyrical poem published just after the start of the 1918 German Spring Offensive during World War I, and during the 1918 flu pandemic about nature's establishment of a new peaceful order that will be indifferent to the outcome of the war or mankind's extinction.
Among contemporary audiences, it is often encountered within Ray Bradbury's short story by the same name: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950).
Sara Teasdale was an American lyrical poet whose most popular works today include The Collected Poems (1937), Love Songs, and Flame and Shadow. There Will Come Soft Rains
While this poem was very breif, it still had depth to it. It made me think about the world differently. If humans were no longer on the earth, it wouldn't disturb anything. The seasons will continue to change, flowers will still bloom, animals will go on and still find a way to survive. Humans think they leave such a big mark on the world, but in realtiy the only thing that will take the time to actully rember the humans are other humans. Nature has no dependibility on humans. Sara Teasdale I would give this short, intense poem 10 stars if I could. That we, who think we control this world, really matter so little... cynical, but so true. The word pictures Teasdale creates in the first three couplets of the poem are soft, lovely, gentle - not at all preparing the reader for what comes after. Which is why what follows is all the more hard-hitting. Sara Teasdale insignificance of human lives Sara Teasdale Writing of the supposed insignificance of human life. A poem that asks the reader to take more notice of nature.
Sara Teasdale I've said many times that poetry and I don't get along. There are rare exceptions to this, and this is one. I will be seeking more by Sara Teasdale. Sara Teasdale