Sara Teasdale

“ Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;
Never fear though it break your heart—
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well,
Though love be heaven or love be hell.
Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel—
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven. ”

“ Swans
Night is over the park, and a few brave stars
Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold,
The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars
That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold.
We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,
And now and again one wakes and uplifts its head;
How still you are—your gaze is on my face—
We watch the swans and never a word is said.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me. ”

“ Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though shouting wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;
Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,
Oh, let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again. ”

“ There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls
Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
Walk on a little, let me stand here watching
To see you, too, grown strange to me and far. . . .
I used to wonder how the park would be
If one night we could have it all alone—
No lovers with close arm-encircled waists
To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
And now we have it! Every wish comes true!
We are alone now in a fleecy world;
Even the stars have gone. We two alone!
[End of Love Songs.] ”

“ I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light. ”

“ My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise? ”

“ Come back like the sea with singing,
And light of a million stars.
I Would Live in Your Love
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes ”

“ I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you—
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
Prefatory Note
Beside new poems, this book contains lyrics taken from "Rivers to the Sea", "Helen of Troy and Other Poems", and one or two from an earlier volume. ”

“ Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door—
But what if I heard my first love calling me once more? ”

“ Am bitter as the sea.
November
The world is tired, the year is old,
The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind. ”

“ I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control—
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery. ”

“ If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go—
Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.
Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.
And still another shining place
We would remember—how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.
But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day. ”

“ Life has loveliness to sell,
⁠Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
⁠Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night. ”

“ They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before,—
Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more. ”

“ I said, "My youth is gone
⁠Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
That will never sway and sing
⁠Or play with the wind again."
I said, "It is no great sorrow
⁠That quenched my youth in me,
But only little sorrows
⁠Beating ceaselessly." ”

“ I saw the sunset-colored sands,
⁠The Nile like flowing fire between,
⁠Where Rameses stares forth serene,
And Ammon's heavy temple stands.
I saw the rocks where long ago,
⁠Above the sea that cries and breaks,
⁠Swift Perseus with Medusa's snakes
Set free the maiden white like snow. ”

“ If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness. ”

“ When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange—my youth. ”

“ The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow. ”

“ There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea. ”

“ I shall go no more to his grave,
⁠For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
⁠As my hands can hold.
I shall stay all day in the sun
⁠Where the wide winds blow,—
But oh, I shall cry at night
⁠When none will know. ”

“ Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled my hair. . . .
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky. ”

“ You took my empty dreams
⁠And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
⁠April and the sun.
The old empty dreams
⁠Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
⁠To even hold a song. ”

“ From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.
For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality. ”

“ To-night I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me—
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive, shy years,
As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears. ”

“ Come, for life is a frail moth flying,
Caught in the web of the years that pass,
And soon we two, so warm and eager,
Will be as the gray stones in the grass. ”

“ The milk-white peacocks slept,
⁠And their dreams were strange and dim.
Bright dew was on the grass,
⁠And on the ilex, dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
⁠Were all a-glisten, too.
The fountain sang and sang
⁠The things one cannot tell ”

“ Rivers to the Sea
"There is hardly another American woman-poet whose poetry is generally known and loved like that of Sara Teasdale. 'Rivers to the Sea', her latest volume of lyrics, possesses the delicacy of imagery, the inward illumination, the high vision that characterize the poetry that will endure the test of time."—'Review of Reviews'.
"'Rivers to the Sea' is a book of sheer delight. . . . Her touch turns everything to song."—Edward J. Wheeler, in 'Current Opinion'.
"Sara Teasdale's lyrics have the clarity, the precision, the grace and fragrance of flowers."—Harriet Monroe, in 'Poetry'. ”

“ When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now. ”

“ Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup. ”

“ Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907) , [at least one poem in the current volume, "Faults", is from this book,] but "Helen of Troy" (1911) was the true launch of her career, followed by "Rivers to the Sea" (1915) , "Love Songs" (1917) , "Flame and Shadow" (1920) and more. Her final volume, "Strange Victory", is considered by many to be predictive of her suicide in 1933. ”