There Will Come Soft Rains By Sara Teasdale

A reading of Sara Teasdale’s “There Will Come Soft Rains (War Time),” published in 1920 in the aftermath of the First World War. Through images of rain, birds, trees, and spring, Teasdale offers a brief and striking reflection on beauty, war, human absence, and the persistence of the natural world. This recording leaves the poem to speak for itself, ending in silence without additional interpretation or reflection.

Transcript

I'm continuing an experiment here. Simply reading something beautiful and allowing the words themselves to create a little space for reflection. This is Sarah Teasdale's There Will Come Soft Rains, Wartime, Published in 1920 in the aftermath of the First World War. 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 and 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.