Lyric Poem · Nature
"There Will Come Soft Rains"
by Sara Teasdale · 1918
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.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“"There Will Come Soft Rains"” by Sara Teasdale — quilloak.com/poems/there-will-come-soft-rains
Quick facts
- Poem
- "There Will Come Soft Rains"
- Poet
- Sara Teasdale
- Published
- 1918
- Length
- 12 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Nature, Life, War & Remembrance
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 12 lines · 6 couplets
- End rhyme
- AA in 67% of the stanzas — a rhyming couplet. The remaining stanzas vary, often through slant rhyme.
- Line length
- Lines run 8-11 syllables (median 9). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Sara Teasdale1884–1933
- Source record
- Wikisource"There Will Come Soft Rains" by sara-teasdale, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1918
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 c4cc1b1f0cc3b31f…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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