Sara Teasdale

“ On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars,
In a wood too deep for a single star to look through,
You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness,
But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew. ”

“ I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In restless self-importance to and fro.
58
The Solitary
My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,
I have less need now than when I was young
To share myself with every comer
Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.
It is one to me that they come or go
If I have myself and the drive of my will,
And strength to climb on a summer night
And watch the stars swarm over the hill. ”

“ For I had learned from many an autumn
The way a leaf can drift and go,
Lightly, lightly, almost gay
Taking the unreturning way
To mix with winter and the snow.
81
Winter
I shall have winter now and lessening days,
Lit by a smoky sun with slanting rays,
And after falling leaves, the first determined frost.
The colors of the world will all be lost. ”

“ Though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost,
Every time the earth circles her orbit
On the night the autumn equinox is crossed,
Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight
Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep ”

“ There will be stars forever, while we sleep.
22
II
PICTURES
OF
AUTUMN
25
Autumn
(Parc Monceau)
I shall remember only these leaves falling
Small and incessant in the still air,
Yellow leaves on the dark green water resting
And the marble Venus there—
Is she pointing to her breasts or trying to hide them?
There is no god to care.
The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water
And its reflection seems
Lost in the mass of leaves and unavailing
As a dream lost among dreams;
The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water
A dream lost among dreams. ”

“ A light would pass over her face.
42
Epitaph
Serene descent, as a red leaf’s descending
When there is neither wind nor noise of rain,
But only autumn air and the unending
Drawing of all things to the earth again:
So be it ”

“ Midsummer night without a moon, but the stars
In a serene bright multitude were there,
Even the shyest ones, even the faint motes shining
Low in the north, under the Little Bear.
When I have said, “This tragic farce I play in
Has neither dignity, delight nor end,”
The holy night draws all its stars around me,
I am ashamed, I have betrayed my Friend. ”

“ It was a night of early spring,
The winter-sleep was scarcely broken;
Around us shadows and the wind
Listened for what was never spoken.
Though half a score of years are gone,
Spring comes as sharply now as then—
But if we had it all to do
It would be done the same again.
It was a spring that never came,
But we have lived enough to know
What we have never had, remains;
It is the things we have that go. ”

“ In the Wood
I heard the water-fall rejoice
Singing like a choir,
I saw the sun flash out of it
Azure and amber fire.
The earth was like an open flower
Enamelled and arrayed,
The path I took to find its heart
Fluttered with sun and shade.
And while earth lured me, gently, gently,
Happy and all alone,
Suddenly a heavy snake
Reared black upon a stone. ”

“ I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
There was no other creature
That saw what I could see—
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me. ”

“ A thousand wings sweep darkly by
Over the dunes and out of sight.
Why did you bring me down to the sea
With the gathering birds and the fish-hawk flying,
The tide is low and the wind is hard,
Nothing is left but the old year dying. ”

“ These pale curved lips of hers, holding their hidden smile,
Once having made their choice, knew no regret.
She was of those who hoard their own thoughts carefully,
Feeling them far too dear to give away,
Content to look at life with the high, insolent
Air of an audience watching a play. ”

“ Till stars burned through the heavens
Intolerably bright.
It was not long I lived there
But I became a woman
Under those vehement stars.
For it was there I heard
For the first time my spirit
Forging an iron rule for me,
As though with slow cold hammers
Beating out word by word:
“Only yourself can heal you,
Only yourself can lead you,
The road is heavy going
And ends where no man knows ”

“ The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you,
And all the tragic tunes that love can play,
Yet with no woman born would you have changed your lot,
Though there were greater queens who had been gay.
21
“There Will Be Stars”
There will be stars over the place forever ”

“ The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you, ”

“ Copyright, 1921, by Harper Brothers, Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Century Company, Harcourt Brace and Company, George H. Doran Company, The New Republic, Inc., and The Yale Publishing Association.
Copyright, 1922, by The Century Company, Harcourt Brace and Company, Vanity Fair Publishing Company, Inc., and George H. Doran Company.
Copyright, 1923, by Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Century Company, The New Republic, Inc., Gene Derwood and The Atlantic Monthly Company. ”