Thoughts
When I am all aloneEnvy me most,Then my thoughts flutter round meIn a glimmering host;
Some dressed in silver,Some dressed in white,Each like a taperBlossoming light;
Most of them merry,Some of them grave,Each of them litheAs willows that wave;
Some bearing violets,Some bearing bay,One with a burning roseHidden away—
When I am all aloneEnvy me then,For I have better friendsThan women and men.
Faces
People that I meet and passIn the city's broken roar,Faces that I lose so soonAnd have never found before,
Do you know how much you tellIn the meeting of our eyes,How ashamed I am, and sadTo have pierced your poor disguise?
Secrets rushing without soundCrying from your hiding places—Let me go, I cannot bearThe sorrow of the passing faces.
—People in the restless street,Can it be, oh can it beIn the meeting of our eyesThat you know as much of me?
Evening: New York
Blue dust of evening over my city,Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towersWhere the window-lights, myriads and myriads,Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
Snowfall
"She can't be unhappy," you said,"The smiles are like stars in her eyes,And her laugh is thistledownAround her low replies.""Is she unhappy?" you said—But who has ever knownAnother's heartbreak—All he can know is his own;And she seems hushed to me,As hushed as thoughHer heart were a hunter's fireSmothered in snow.
The Silent Battle
(In Memory of J. W. T. Jr.)
He was a soldier in that fightWhere there is neither flag nor drum,And without sound of musketryThe stealthy foemen come.
Year in, year out, by day and nightThey forced him to a slow retreat,And for his gallant fight aloneNo fife was blown, and no drum beat.
In winter fog, in gathering mistThe gray grim battle had its end—And at the very last we knewHis enemy had turned his friend.
The Sanctuary
If I could keep my innermost MeFearless, aloof and freeOf the least breath of love or hate,And not disconsolateAt the sick load of sorrow laid on men;If I could keep a sanctuary thereFree even of prayer,If I could do this, then,With quiet candor as I grew more wiseI could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.
At Sea
In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,Wild night around me, wild water under me,Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.
Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,Why do I look for a place to rest?I must fight always and die fightingWith fear an unhealing wound in my breast.
Dust
When I went to look at what had long been hidden,A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire—But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.
I almost gave my life long ago for a thingThat has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—It is strange how often a heart must be brokenBefore the years can make it wise.
The Long Hill
I must have passed the crest a while agoAnd now I am going down—Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.
All the morning I thought how proud I should beTo stand there straight as a queen,Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me—But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.
It was nearly level along the beaten trackAnd the brambles caught in my gown—But it's no use now to think of turning back,The rest of the way will be only going down.
Summer Storm
The panther windLeaps out of the night,The snake of lightningIs twisting and white,The lion of thunderRoars—and weSit still and contentUnder a tree—We have met fate togetherAnd love and pain,Why should we fearThe wrath of the rain!
In the End
All that could never be said,All that could never be done,Wait for us at lastSomewhere back of the sun;
All the heart broke to foregoShall be ours without pain,We shall take them as lightly as girlsPluck flowers after rain.
And when they are ours in the endPerhaps after allThe skies will not open for usNor heaven be there at our call.
"It Will Not Change"
It will not change nowAfter so many years;Life has not broken itWith parting or tears;Death will not alter it,It will live onIn all my songs for youWhen I am gone.
Change
Remember me as I was then;Turn from me now, but always seeThe laughing shadowy girl who stoodAt midnight by the flowering tree,With eyes that love had made as brightAs the trembling stars of the summer night.
Turn from me now, but always hearThe muted laughter in the dewOf that one year of youth we had,The only youth we ever knew—Turn from me now, or you will seeWhat other years have done to me.
Water Lilies
If you have forgotten water lilies floatingOn a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away foreverTo the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
"Did You Never Know?"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me—That your love would never lessen and never go?You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before itFar apart, far away in the gusty time of year—Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
The Treasure
When they see my songsThey will sigh and say,"Poor soul, wistful soul,Lonely night and day."
They will never knowAll your love for meSurer than the spring,Stronger than the sea;
Hidden out of sightLike a miser's goldIn forsaken fieldsWhere the wind is cold.
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakenedBy a wind that made me glad and afraidOf the rushing, pouring sound of the seaThat the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and overWhile the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned—I thought it was you who had come to find me,You were the wind.
Songs For MyselfXII
The Tree
Oh to be free of myself,With nothing left to remember,To have my heart as bareAs a tree in December;
Resting, as a tree restsAfter its leaves are gone,Waiting no more for a rain at nightNor for the red at dawn;
But still, oh so stillWhile the winds come and go,With no more fear of the hard frostOr the bright burden of snow;
And heedless, heedlessIf anyone pass and seeOn the white page of the skyIts thin black tracery.
At Midnight
Now at last I have come to see what life is,Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,And the brave victories that seem so splendidAre never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit's house for,Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,And music and men's praise and even laughterAre not so good as rest.
Song Making
My heart cried like a beaten childCeaselessly all night long;I had to take my own criesAnd thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnightAnd one when the first cock crew—My heart was like a beaten child,But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debtAnd I must serve you long—But oh, the debt is terribleThat must be paid in song.
Alone
I am alone, in spite of love,In spite of all I take and give—In spite of all your tenderness,Sometimes I am not glad to live.
I am alone, as though I stoodOn the highest peak of the tired gray world,About me only swirling snow,Above me, endless space unfurled;
With earth hidden and heaven hidden,And only my own spirit's prideTo keep me from the peace of thoseWho are not lonely, having died.
Red Maples
In the last year I have learnedHow few men are worth my trust;I have seen the friend I lovedStruck by death into the dust,And fears I never knew beforeHave knocked and knocked upon my door—"I shall hope little and ask for less,"I said, "There is no happiness."
I have grown wise at last—but howCan I hide the gleam on the willow-bough,Or keep the fragrance out of the rainNow that April is here again?When maples stand in a haze of fireWhat can I say to the old desire,What shall I do with the joy in meThat is born out of agony?
Debtor
So long as my spirit stillIs glad of breathAnd lifts its plumes of prideIn the dark face of death;While I am curious stillOf love and fame,Keeping my heart too highFor the years to tame,How can I quarrel with fateSince I can seeI am a debtor to life,Not life to me?
The Wind in the Hemlock
Steely stars and moon of brass,How mockingly you watch me pass!You know as well as I how soonI shall be blind to stars and moon,Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.
With envious dark rage I bear,Stars, your cold complacent stare;Heart-broken in my hate look up,Moon, at your clear immortal cup,Changing to gold from dusky red—Age after age when I am deadTo be filled up with light, and thenEmptied, to be refilled again.
What has man done that only heIs slave to death—so brutallyBeaten back into the earthImpatient for him since his birth?
Oh let me shut my eyes, close outThe sight of stars and earth and beSheltered a minute by this tree.Hemlock, through your fragrant boughsThere moves no anger and no doubt,No envy of immortal things.The night-wind murmurs of the seaWith veiled music ceaselessly,That to my shaken spirit sings.From their frail nest the robins rouse,In your pungent darkness stirred,Twittering a low drowsy word—And me you shelter, even me.In your quietness you houseThe wind, the woman and the bird.You speak to me and I have heard:
If I am peaceful, I shall seeBeauty's face continually;Feeding on her wine and breadI shall be wholly comforted,For she can make one day for meRich as my lost eternity.
[End of original text.]
Biographical Note:
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933):
Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended a school that was founded by the grandfather of another great poet from St. Louis— T. S. Eliot. She later associated herself more with New York City. Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907), 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.
——
From an anthology of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1913, 1917):
"Teasdale, Sara (Mrs. Ernst B. Filsinger). Born in St. Louis, Missouri,August 10, 1884. Educated at private schools. She is the authorof "Sonnets to Duse", 1907; "Helen of Troy, and Other Poems", 1911;"Rivers to the Sea", 1915; "Love Songs", 1917. Editor of"The Answering Voice: A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women", 1917.Miss Teasdale is a lyric poet of an unusually pure and spontaneous gift."