The American poet Sara Teasdale first published "There Will Come Soft Rains" in a 1918 issue of Harper's Magazine. The poem is usually taken as commenting on humankind's insignificance in the face the natural world—a world of beauty, harmony, and indifference toward human struggles. In 1920, Teasdale added the subtitle "War Time" in order to emphasize the fact that the poem takes place against the backdrop of World War I. Using straightforward language and neat rhyming couplets, the speaker says that the natural world existed peacefully before humanity's violence and destruction, and that nature will, when human beings inevitably wipe each other off the face of the earth, continue on undisturbed.
