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



(c)