Sara Teasdale

“ Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
THE SEA WIND I AM a pool in a peaceful place,
I greet the great sky face to face,
I know the stars and the stately moon
And the wind that runs with rippling shoon—
But why does it always bring to me
The far-off, beautiful sound of the sea? ”

“ Is waiting tho' I see him not.
"I AM NOT YOURS " I AM not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, altho' I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snow-flake 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.
Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind. ”

“ Swift clouds make all the heavens blind,
A storm is running on the wind—
He only sees
How Mary will stretch out her hands
Sobbing, who never understands
Voices like these.
THE MOTHER OF A POET SHE is too kind, I think, for mortal things,
Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth;
God gave to her a shy and silver mirth,
And made her soul as clear
And softly singing as an orchard spring's
In sheltered hollows all the sunny year—
A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up
And holds all heaven in its clarid cup,
Mirror to holy meadows high and blue
With stars like drops of dew. ”

“ My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears,
Know that I sang for you alone to hear,
And that I wondered if the wind would bring
To him who tuned my heart its distant song.
So might a woman who in loneliness
Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come,
Wonder if it would please its father's eyes.
But long before I ever heard your name,
Always the undertone's unchanging note
In all my singing had prefigured you,
Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. ”

“ How should they know the wind of a new beauty
Sweeping my soul had winnowed it with song?
I have been glad tho' love should come or go,
Happy as trees that find a wind to sway them,
Happy again when it has left them rest.
Others shall say, "Grave Dica wrought her death.
She would not lift her lips to take a kiss,
Or ever lift her eyes to take a smile.
She was a pool the winter paves with ice
That the wild hunter in the hills must leave
With thirst unslaked in the brief southward sun." ”

“ And once more on your shoulders fell the snow.
JOY I AM wild, I will sing to the trees,
I will sing to the stars in the sky,
I love, I am loved, he is mine,
Now at last I can die!
I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
I have heart-fire and singing to give,
I can tread on the grass or the stars,
Now at last I can live! ”

“ While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start—
Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.
A PRAYER UNTIL I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf tho' a lyric 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.
II INDIAN SUMMER LYRIC night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent. ”

“ And south-wind playing on the reeds of rain,
But never Sappho's whisper in the night,
Never her love-cry when the lover comes.
Farewell! I close the door and make it fast.
The little street lies meek beneath the moon,
Running, as rivers run, to meet the sea.
I too go seaward and shall not return.
Oh garlands on the doorposts that I pass,
Woven of asters and of autumn leaves,
I make a prayer for you: Cypris be kind,
That every lover may be given love. ”

“ I lived with the swift singing strength of fire,
Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel—
Beauty in all things and in every hour.
The gods have given life—I gave them song;
The debt is paid and now I turn to go.
The breath of dawn blows the stars out like lamps,
There is a rim of silver on the sea,
As one grown tired who hopes to sleep, I go.
II Oh Litis, little slave, why will you sleep? ”

“ DESERT POOLS I LOVE too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
Love will not stoop to drink of me.
His feet will turn to desert places
Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
From heavens pitilessly blue.
And there at midnight sick with faring,
He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
In stagnant water keen as fire. ”

“ The hunted hurrying people were still the same....
AFTER LOVE THERE is no magic when we meet,
We speak as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea—
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But tho' the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace. ”

“ I shall be less than spindrift, less than shells;
And yet I shall be greater than the gods,
For destiny no more can bow my soul
As rain bows down the watch-fires on the hills.
Yes, if my soul escape it shall aspire
To the white heaven as flame that has its will.
I go not bitterly, not dumb with pain,
Not broken by the ache of love—I go
As one grown tired lies down and hopes to sleep. ”

“ DEEP IN THE NIGHT DEEP in the night the cry of a swallow,
Under the stars he flew,
Keen as pain was his call to follow
Over the world to you.
Love in my heart is a cry forever
Lost as the swallow's flight,
Seeking for you and never, never
Stilled by the stars at night.
THE INDIA WHARF HERE in the velvet stillness
The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon,
Sleeping in starlight. . . . ”

“ The wind is hard and wild,
I stand at the darkened window
And cry like a child.
DUSK IN WAR TIME A HALF-HOUR more and you will lean
To gather me close in the old sweet way—
But oh, to the woman over the sea
Who will come at the close of day?
A half-hour more and I will hear
The key in the latch and the strong quick tread—
But oh, the woman over the sea
Waiting at dusk for one who is dead! ”

“ SWALLOW FLIGHT I LOVE my hour of wind and light,
I love men's faces and their eyes,
I love my spirit's veering flight
Like swallows under evening skies,
THOUGHTS WHEN I can make my thoughts come forth
To walk like ladies up and down,
Each one puts on before the glass
Her most becoming hat and gown. ”

“ 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 OLD MAID I SAW her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes
Tho' love had never made them shine.
Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came ”

“ A white star born in the evening glow
Looked to the round green world below,
And saw a pool in a wooded place
That held like a jewel her mirrored face.
She said to the pool: "Oh, wondrous deep,
I love you, I give you my light to keep. ”

“ Posilipo kneels and looks in the burnished sea,
Naples crowds her million roofs close as close can be;
Round about the mountain's crest a flag of smoke is hung—
Oh when God made Italy he was gay and young!
IV
Capri
When beauty grows too great to bear
⁠How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
⁠Makes the heart break. ”

“ For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
"Oh look!"
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty? ”

“ I throw my mantle over the moon
And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,
Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,
I am a child of the heartless wind—
But oh the pines on the mountain's crest
Whispering always, "Rest, rest." ”

“ 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? ”

“ I would that I were there and over me
⁠The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
⁠Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,—
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
⁠Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea. ”

“ The steadfast splendor of enduring light.
The moon drifts dimly in the heaven's height,
⁠Watching with wonder how the earth she knew
⁠That lay so long wrapped deep in dark and dew,
Should wear upon her breast a star so white. ”

“ You who have waked me cannot give me sleep.
All things in all the world can rest, but I,
Even the smooth brief respite of a wave
When it gives up its broken crown of foam,
Even that little rest I may not have. ”

“ Oh how can Spring take heart to come
⁠To a world in grief,
⁠Deep grief?
The sun turns north, the days grow long,
⁠Later the evening star grows bright—
How can the daylight linger on
⁠For men to fight,
⁠Still fight? ”

“ Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.
The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread into the night,
Their whistles weird shadows of sound.
We feel the millions of humanity beneath us,—
The warm millions, moving under the roofs,
Consumed by their own desires ”

“ The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy
Come up to us
Like a cold fog wrapping us round.
Oh in a hundred years
Not one of these blood-warm bodies
But will be worthless as clay.
The anguish, the torpor, the toil
Will have passed to other millions
Consumed by the same desires.
Ages will come and go,
Darkness will blot the lights
And the tower will be laid on the earth. ”

“ I said, "I will take my life
⁠And throw it away;
I who was fire and song
⁠Will turn to clay."
"I will lie no more in the night
⁠With shaken breath,
I will toss my heart in the air
⁠To be caught by Death." ”

“ I kissed it once and threw it,
⁠The petals scattered over him,
⁠His song was turned to joy;
And he will never know—
Alas, the one who knew it!—
⁠The rose was plucked when dusk was dim
⁠Beside a laughing boy. ”

“ I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
⁠The tunnel's strong hot breath of powdered steel;
But at the ferries I should leave the tense
⁠Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
⁠One among many who are thrilled to feel
⁠The first keen sea-breath from the open sea. ”

“ Close, close against my heart I hold my world.
Ah, Love that made my life a lyric cry,
Ah, Love that tuned my lips to lyres of thine,
I taught the world thy music, now alone
I sing for one who falls asleep to hear. ”

“ Look far away, and if I say too much,
Forget that I am speaking. Only watch,
How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest,
The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave
Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. ”

“ Oh dripping laurel, Phœbus sacred tree,
⁠Would that swift Daphne's lot might come to me,
Then would I still my soul and for an hour
⁠Change to a laurel in the glancing shower.
X
Stresa
The moon grows out of the hills
⁠A yellow flower,
The lake is a dreamy bride
⁠Who waits her hour.
Beauty has filled my heart,
⁠It can hold no more,
It is full, as the lake is full,
⁠From shore to shore. ”

“ 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,
The dreaming peacocks stirred
⁠And the gleaming dew-drops fell. ”

“ I know how flame must strain and fret
Prisoned in a mortal net;
How joy with over-eager wings,
Bruises the small heart where he sings;
How too much life, like too much gold,
Is sometimes very hard to hold.... ”

“ That in my heart's most secret place
I pity them as angels do
Men who have never seen God's face. ”

“ Laid long ago in some still cypress shade,
⁠Divided from the man who longed for thee,
⁠Here in a land whose name he never heard,
⁠His song brought love as April brings the bird,
⁠And not a breath divides my love from me! ”

“ They get them to bed, somehow,
And sleep the forgiving,
Comes thru the scattering tumult
And closes their eyes.
The stars sink down ashamed
And the dawn awakes,
Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
Dizzy and sick. ”