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
By Sara Teasdale, from her collection, "Flame and Shadow," published in 1920
