“There Will Come Soft Rains” Summary

“There Will Come Soft Rains” Themes

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  Nature, Humanity, and War

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “There Will Come Soft Rains”

• Lines 1-2

  There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
  And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-6

  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;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-10

  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;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-12

  And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
  Would scarcely know that we were gone.

  

  

  

  

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“There Will Come Soft Rains” Symbols

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  The Robins Whistling on the Fence

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“There Will Come Soft Rains” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Juxtaposition

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Sibilance

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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“There Will Come Soft Rains” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Swallows
• Shimmering
• Tremulous
• Feathery Fire
• Whims
• Perished
• Utterly
• Scarcely

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “There Will Come Soft Rains”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“There Will Come Soft Rains” Speaker

“There Will Come Soft Rains” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “There Will Come Soft Rains”

More “There Will Come Soft Rains” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "There Will Come Soft Rains."

  • Ray Bradbury's Short Story — The science fiction writer Ray Bradbury wrote a story called "There Will Come Soft Rains," borrowing the title from Teasdale's poem.

  • The Sedition Act of 1918 — Learn more about the Sedition Act of 1918, which is possibly one of the reasons that the references to World War I in "There Will Come Soft Rains" are indirect and subtle. 

  • Sara Teasdale's Biography — For more information about Sara Teasdale, take a look at this brief overview of her life and work.

  • The Poem in Popular Culture — A robot in the post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 3 recites "There Will Come Soft Rains."

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Sara Teasdale

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