Irrespective of what we might feel about the evil of war, or the evil we see in our neighbours, is it right to treat the plight of our fellow men with indifference, as the American poet, Sara Teasdale, does in “There Will Come Soft Rains”? And in her poem, is Teasdale exhibiting the same failure to love her neighbour which causes war itself?
Sara Teasdale
I’ve always been fascinated by war poetry, in all its manifold and multifaceted forms. At one end of the spectrum is the poetry of war glorified, such as Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” and Chesterton’s “Lepanto”, whereas, at the other extreme, is the poetry of war demonized, as exemplified in the adversarial verse of Owen and Sassoon. In the light or shadow of this fixation or flirtation with the dark side of poetic experience, I was intrigued to discover “There Will Come Soft Rains”, subtitled “War Time”, by the American poetess, Sara Teasdale, which was presumably written in 1918, the year in which Miss Teasdale received the Pulitzer Prize and in which the United States was actively engaged in World War One. It warrants quoting in extenso:
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.
On a first reading, there is something very comforting and comfortable about this poem. It warms us and keeps us warm. It’s as though we are being reminded that “nature is never spent”, as Hopkins assures us, and that “above all shadows rides the sun”, as Samwise Gamgee says. Above all the darkness of wickedness and war, there is always the sun and there are always the creatures that crawl and creep under the sun. “All shall be well,” as Julian of Norwich insisted, “and all manner of things shall be well.” This is indeed all very well and yet, on a deeper reading, something else emerges that the poet might be saying, or perhaps failing to say, which is a little unsettling in a manner altogether different from the disturbing aspects of Owen’s or Sassoon’s poetry. Whereas the latter disturbs us with its graphic depiction of the horror of trench warfare, as experienced by the poets themselves, Miss Teasdale’s poem is unsettling because of its absence of any evident love for humanity and its apparent indifference to the plight of those suffering the horrors of the war of which she writes. There is the presence (perhaps) of a love of nature, as it manifests itself in beauty, but such love cannot disguise the absence of the love of neighbour. It’s not so much the indifference of nature to the plight of man which is unsettling but the apparent indifference of the poet herself to human suffering.
Is the poet playing Pontius Pilate, pointing at pathetic battle-scourged Man – Ecce Homo! – and then publicly washing her hands in his presence. Let him crucify himself!
How should we respond to such a poem? How should we react to this attempt to lose ourselves from the immanence of man’s bloody presence in the perceived transcendent beauty of nature?
Irrespective of what we might feel about the evil of war, or the evil we see in our neighbours, is it right to treat the plight of our fellow men with such apparent indifference? And isn’t it ironic that the poet, insofar as she does so, is exhibiting the same failure to love her neighbour which causes war itself? Such “peace” is the very seed of war.
Compare this poem with one on a very similar theme, “Still Falls the Rain”, written in 1940 by Edith Sitwell while the Nazis were dropping bombs on London and other British cities. The “rain” of which Miss Sitwell speaks is, therefore, not merely the “soft rains” of nature, of which Miss Teasdale writes, but the fire raining down from heaven during wartime. Let’s look at the first stanza of Miss Sitwell’s poem:
Still falls the Rain –
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss –
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.
In spite of the obvious similarities in the use of the imagery of rain within the context of poems about war, there is a crucial difference. “Still Falls the Rain” shows the love of neighbour and pity for the sinner which are absent in the earlier poem. Such love and pity are present paradoxically in the very image of the nails hammered into the body of history, ever since the time of Christ, crucifying Man even as it crucifies the Son of Man. There have been nineteen hundred and forty years since the birth of Christ, says Miss Sitwell, and each one of them represents a separate nail hammered into His crucified Body. The poet doesn’t focus on the indifference of nature towards the wickedness of humanity, but on the love of God in the face of such wickedness which is anything but indifferent. The focus is on the loving and merciful response of Christ to those who persecute Him and, by inextricable and inexorable extension, on His commandment that we love each other as He loves us. The focus is not on contempt for man and condemnation of his wickedness but on the love of humanity shown by God and His merciful response to wickedness, a merciful love which we are meant to imitate and emulate.
The crucial difference is evident in the very rain that the poets evoke. For Miss Teasdale, the rain is there to wash away the sin of humanity’s presence; for Miss Sitwell, the rain falls as tears from heaven. This difference is indeed crucial, in the literal sense in which the word “crucial” derives from the Latin word “crux”, which means “cross”. The difference between the two poems is the absence of Christ and the Cross in the first poem, and their presence in the second.
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The featured image is a photograph of Sara Teasdale by Gerhard Sisters, ca. 1910, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I see what you are saying. There does seem to be a bit of a cold distance in Teasdale’s poem, especially compared to the spiritual vibrancy contained in Sitwell’s. I disagree though that the the compassion should necessarily be added to Teasdale’s. I think that different works of art can display different ways of looking at a situation and still be complete in themselves even if they leave out other ways of looking at the situation. The fact that they leave aspects out allows us to look specifically at the aspect they wish to highlight in order to even appreciate the other aspects more. Highlighting the seeming indifference of nature allows us to look at Sitwell’s poem and appreciate even more the spiritual reality exhibited there. That said, without a full reading of different poems etc. about the subject of war, Teasdale’s poem would be incomplete, and in that sense would raise concern in its incompleteness.
Ms. Teasdale may have been lamenting the human condition as a bereaved rational animal, juxtaposed against the carefree indifference of irrational animals and nature herself. Quite the opposite of Mr. Pearce’s take…
Warren Harding spoke, “I speak not as a pacifist fearing war, but as one who loves justice and hates war.”
The perspectives of a poet, just as any other person albeit more eloquently, express their worldview. We are shaped by the influences that surround us. It is generally the case that the landscape for pacifists to express themselves arises in the shadows of wars that made such pacifism possible.
Mr. Pearce, you point out the underlying confused, dystopic view in “War Time” that arrived at the conclusion that “if it weren’t for those darned people, the world would be a better place.”
And yet there’s a yearning for peace and beauty that cannot come in this imperfect world. In that same world of “frogs in the pools singing at night” are the gators, hawks and raccoons that will violently and mercilessly consume the singing frog in mid stanza.
The world is such complex and nuanced place to exist. Let’s toast to hoping we can find that safe, warm corner where everything’s peachy.
Whilst I generally enjoy Mr Pierce’s articles, I must say this is an exception. I think Teasdale’s poem is quite beautiful, in word and sentiment, and that the article’s portrayal of her (and her beliefs?) is unduly harsh, obtuse even. When one considers the accolades that poems like “Lepanto,” “Ballad of the White Horse,” “Charge of the Light Brigade” or some of Belloc’s more bellicose offerings receive in Christian circles, with nary a criticism of their glorification of war and violence, it rings more than a little hollow when Ms Teasdale is accused “indifference to human suffering.”
Chesterbelloc’s embrace of Medieval violence may be callous, but is at least a celebration of the duality of man.
Whereas Miss Teasdale’s poem smacks of anti-natal nature worship. Is it really possible to ‘love’ nature? In my experience, such an attitude invariably leads to nihilism. See Ricky Gervais for reference..
I think the poem is speaking to the arrogance of man who would wage war, similar to one who would proclaim, “Save the Earth.” The earth will be just fine, with or without us. In waging war, we only wage it against our own arrogant selves.