Analysis:
When one first reads the title,"There Will Come Soft Rains," one can predict that the poem has something to do with nature and possibly humanity. It could also be either figurative or literal. The gist of what the poem is saying is, that if there is war and humans vanish nature will go on. The animals will not know, weather will not know, nature will not know that humans are no more. There are many literary devices used in There Will Come Soft Rains including imagery, alliteration, personification, and rhyme/rhythm. The poem opens with imagery in lines 1-4, creating the setting or scene of the poem. Painting the picture in a reader's mind with the smell of rain and ground, the sound of nature, birds and frogs singing at night. All this imagery creates the story Teasdale is trying to tell. Another device included by Teasdale is the alliteration in line 2. The shimmering sound, emphasizing the rain and nature which is a big motif in the poem. The personification of spring in lines 11-12, also adds to the tale being told. Spring is personified here as almost oblivious to what is going on. Again bringing back the idea that nature would not notice if we perished. The reader can hint on the speaker's tone by the haunting effect of the rhyme and rhythm of the poem. The tone of "There Will Come Soft Rains", is unfairly fatalistic. The speaker views life and humanity as unfair. There is no sympathy, life will go on with or without humans no matter what. Nature will not stop because mankind is dead. Everything will continue on just as it would. Humans will destroy themselves but nature will rebirth and go on without mankind. There are no major shifts in the poem it is continually told in a gloomy mood. The title is in fact literal and about nature/humanity. The title also acts as a preview of the mood. Rainy days are often dark and glum, like the poem. The title could also be interpreted as figurative, the rain being the teardrops of mankind now fallen. The overall theme of "There Will Come Soft Rains" is that nature lives forever while humans are merely temporary.