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(5) 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; (10) and spring herself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone. which interpretation focuses upon a critical theme of the poem? a) this poem focuses on the beauty of nature and its harmony with humanity. b) primarily, this poem is about the the types of plants that grow in spring. eliminate c) the poem is filled with lots of animal imagery: frogs, swallows, and robins, primarily. d) the word "war" shows that this poem is actually a "spring" poem that is anti-war in meaning.

Automatically, eliminate B. C is true, but it isn't the critical theme of the poem. (Tip: If most options are accurate, pay attention to the question. What is it asking you?) First, find out what the poem is telling you. Notice that in the beginning, it sort of has a calming tone to it "There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,". Soft is the keyword of it setting a calm tone. It then talks about a war and that how no one will care if it is done. Nobody would mind if mankind were gone. Not even the animals. Now, let's go back to our answer choices. It was A and D but now that we reread it, let's look at our choices again. A talks about the beauty of nature and it's harmony with humanity. Uh, harmony? When did it mention that? What I caught from the poem was that nature would not care if humanity left for good. That doesn't exactly scream harmony between the two. D says that this seems like an anti-war poem. Oh? Well, it DID say that if the war we had was over, nobody would care. Wars tend to do some damage and I imagine we must have damaged the animal's habitat during that war. If I were an animal and I found out that humanity was gone, I'd be happy since now they won't be able to destroy my habitat anymore! I guess that's what the author meant by when they put that the animals wouldn't care. Make sense? So, the answer would be D.