<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1 id="id00248" style="margin-top: 6em"> "There Will Come Soft Rains"</h1>
<p id="id00251" style="margin-top: 3em"> There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,<br/>
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;<br/></p>
<p id="id00252"> And frogs in the pools singing at night,<br/>
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;<br/></p>
<p id="id00253"> Robins will wear their feathery fire<br/>
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;<br/></p>
<p id="id00254"> And not one will know of the war, not one<br/>
Will care at last when it is done.<br/></p>
<p id="id00255"> Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree<br/>
If mankind perished utterly;<br/></p>
<p id="id00256"> And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,<br/>
Would scarcely know that we were gone.<br/></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />