Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922.

“There will come Soft Rain”

THERE will come soft rain 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.