Sara Teasdale

“ How strong you were, and quick to understand—
I dared not say: "I who am least of those
Who call you friend,—I love you, and I crave
A little love that I may be more brave
Because one watches me who cares and knows." ”

“ And lingered on the branches of the lime—
Oh peerless singer of the golden rhyme,
Happy wert thou to live ere doubt was born—
Before the joy of life was half out-worn,
And nymphs and satyrs vanished from your clime. ”

“ And when he passed, I trembled like
A little frightened bird.
I wish I were the flower-girl
Who waits beside the way—
I'd give my flowers all to him
And see him every day;
I wish I were the flower-girl
Who waits beside the way. ”

“ And far the carven temple gates
⁠Of red and gold—
The dreamy temples where the gods
⁠Have long been old.
The dragonflies and irises
⁠Beside the stream,
Are far away in lands of dawn
⁠And lands of dream. ”

“ For winds to play on to the ocean's rhyme
Of wave on wave forever singing low.
She floated on a web of burnished gold,
And in such light as praying men behold
Cling round a vision, were her sails aglow. ”

“ No crown of woven gold more fair
⁠Could be.
And very queen-like, too, the smile
That lightens every little while
A face too fair for men to see,
O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie.
She is not over kind, I know ”

“ Within the wild dark falling of your hair
There lies a strength that ever soars and sings;
Your mouth's mute weariness is not despair.
Perhaps among us craven earth-born things
God loves its silence better than a prayer. ”

“ With room for only three or four,
And it was filled before you knocked
⁠Upon the door.
I longed to bid you come within,
I knew that I should love you well,
But if you came the rest must go
⁠Elsewhere to dwell. ”

“ Like sparks that tell the glory of a flame,
Still keep alight the splendor of your name,
And living still, they sting us into tears.
⁠Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
⁠Let fall from that far heaven of thine
⁠One golden word. ”

“ I left the House, for all the night
⁠I heard the Wind of Truth;—
I followed where it seemed to lead
⁠Through all my youth.
But when I sought the House of Dreams,
⁠To creep within and die,
The Wind of Truth had levelled it,
⁠And passed it by. ”

“ And now before the goddess,
The maids lay flowers rare,
And she has ceased to care
For bay that I might bear.
To heal my heart's distress,
My feet must wander where
There waits some lonelier goddess. ”

“ Your voice awakes the dreaming airs that throng
Within our music-haunted memories:
The sirens' strain that sank within the seas
When men forgot to listen, floats along
Your voice's undercurrent soft and strong. ”

“ But nursie says, "Come, walk along,
"Don't stand and stare like that"—
I'm only looking hard and hard
To try to find my cat.
And then I want a blue balloon
That tries to fly away,
I thought if I wished hard enough
That it would come some day. ”