Poems by Sara TeasdaleTwo knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."
Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
And hands to make his hands rejoice,
But to my lover I must be
Only a voice.
Her voice is like clear water
That drips upon a stone
In forests far and silent
Where Quiet plays alone.
A little while when I am gone
My life will live in music after me,
As spun foam lifted and borne on
Oh if I were the velvet rose
Upon the red rose vine,
I'd climb to touch his window
And make his casement fine.
Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
There!See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
When I am dying, let me know
That I loved the blowing snow
Although it stung like whips;
That I loved all lovely things
The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.
Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced,
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Send out the singers -- let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue.
This is the quiet hour; the theaters
Have gathered in their crowds, and steadily
The million lights blaze on for few to see,
I shall bury my weary Love
Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
Where none can see.
The April night is still and sweet
With flowers on every tree;
Peace comes to them on quiet feet,
But not to me.
Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace
Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,
Never fear though it break your heart -
The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine;
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
Come, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,
Come with outstretched arms to take me,
Why did you bring me here?
The sand is white with snow,
Over the wooden domes
The winter sea-winds blow--
I wear a crown invisible and clear,
And go my lifted royal way apart
Since you have crowned me softly in your heart
What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
You never gave my spirit wings
Or gave my heart a song.
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.
I love too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me?
That your love would never lessen and never go?
Every night I lie awake
And every day I lie abed
And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
Confering at my head.
I have come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there
Burning as before
My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her?
But sometimes she is less your own
I gave my life to another lover,
I gave my love, and all, and all--
But over a dream the past will hover,
Evening, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.
When the long day goes by
And I do not see your face,
The old wild, restless sorrow
Steals from its hiding place.
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."
It is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night
They sent you in to say farewell to me,
No, do not shake your head; I see your eyes
They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I am afraid, oh I am so afraid!
The cold black fear is clutching me to-night
As long ago when they would take the light
They spoke of him I love
With cruel words and gay;
My lips kept silent guard
On all I could not say.
I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
At midnight, when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
"Four winds blowing thro' the sky,
You have seen poor maidens die,
Tell me then what I shall do
That my lover may be true."
The northern woods are delicately sweet,
The lake is folded softly by the shore,
But I am restless for the subway's roar,
All beauty calls you to me, and you seem,
Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea,
Vivid with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
I gave my first love laughter,
I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Thru all the years.
For W. P.
The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn't put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea.
I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn
The flames' red wings soar upward duskily.
I hid the love within my heart,
And lit the laughter in my eyes,
That when we meet he may not know
My love that never dies.
You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.
The old empty dreams
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.
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep
Dust need not keep the secret
A live heart died to keep.
There never was a mood of mine,
Gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull,
But you could ease me of its fever
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,
I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
We stood in the shrill electric light,
Dumb and sick in the whirling din
We who had all of love to say
If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go --
Back to a morning in the park
If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go --
Back to a morning in the park
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,
One by one, like leaves from a tree
All my faiths have forsaken me;
But the stars above my head
Burn in white and delicate red,
Less than the cloud to the wind,
Less than the foam to the sea,
Less than the rose to the storm,
Am I to thee.
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
When we come home at night and close the door,
Standing together in the shadowy room,
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending
And rising again,
I am not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,
For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.
Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
I sought among the drifting leaves,
The golden leaves that once were green,
To see if Love were hiding there
Brown Thrush singing all day long
In the leaves above me,
Take my love this little song,
"Love me, love me, love me!"
I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges
Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea;
The sparrows wake beneath the convent eaves;
I think I have not slept the whole night through.
The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
The shining line of motors,
The swaying motor-bus,
The prancing dancing horses
Are passing by for us.
The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.
I said, "I have shut my heart
As one shuts an open door,
That Love may starve therein
And trouble me no more."
I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!
It was your voice I heard,
I am the still rain falling,
Too tired for singing mirth--
Oh, be the green fields calling,
Oh, be for me the earth!
It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
In my heart the old love
Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly waking
All night thru.
Dear things, kind things,
When the horns wear thin
And the noise, like a garment outworn,
Falls from the night,
The tattered and shivering night,
The moon is a charring ember
Dying into the dark;
Off in the crouching mountains
Coyotes bark.
The stars are heavy in heaven,
I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love --
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.
I asked the darkened sea
I asked the heaven of stars
What I should I give my love--
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.
The world is tired, the year is old,
The little leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Among the rushes dry.
Oh day of fire and sun,
Pure as a naked flame,
Blue sea, blue sky and dun
Sands where he spoke my name;
Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? --
As the waves of perfume, heliotrope,rose,
Float in the garden when no wind blows,
Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;
He trod the earth but yesterday,
And now he treads the stars.
He left us in the April time
He praised so often in his rhyme,
Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Out of the window a sea of green trees
Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer;
When I talk with other men
I always think of you --
Your words are keener than their words,
And they are gentler, too.
I
Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower
Ring on, ring on unendingly,
Make all the hours a single hour,
The city's all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind's a-blowing,
The little shower is done.
Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.
Pierrot stands in the garden
Beneath a waning moon,
And on his lute he fashions
A little silver tune.
(For a picture by Duncan Walker)
Lady, light in the east hangs low,
Draw your veils of dream apart,
They never saw my lover's face,
They only know our love was brief,
Wearing awhile a windy grace
As kings, seeing their lives about to pass,
Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,
I have no riches but my thoughts,
Yet these are wealth enough for me;
My thoughts of you are golden coins
Was that his step that sounded on the stair?
Was that his knock I heard upon the door?
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,
If he could know my songs are all for him,
At silver dawn or in the evening glow,
Would he not smile and think it but a whim,
The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
(To Eleonora Duse)
We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
If I could have your arms tonight-
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.
Fairy snow, fairy snow,
Blowing, blowing everywhere,
Would that I
Too, could fly
Lightly, lightly through the air.
"She can't be unhappy," you said,
"The smiles are like stars in her eyes,
And her laughter is thistledown
You bound strong sandals on my feet,
You gave me bread and wine,
And sent me under sun and stars,
For all the world was mine.
When beauty grows too great to bear
How shall I ease me of its ache,
For beauty more than bitterness
Makes the heart break.
When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body's flower,
I feel the Spring far off, far off,
The faint far scent of bud and leaf--
Oh how can Spring take heart to come
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
When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
The birds are all a-building,
They say the world's a-flower,
And still I linger lonely
Within a barren bower.
My soul is a dark ploughed field
In the cold rain;
My soul is a broken field
Ploughed by pain.
Where grass and bending flowers
The summer dawn came over-soon,
The earth was like hot iron at noon
In Nazareth;
There fell no rain to ease the heat,
I am a cloud in the heaven's height,
The stars are lit for my delight,
Tireless and changeful, swift and free,
I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
But I have had from a child
The deep solace of song;
The faery forest glimmered
Beneath an ivory moon,
The silver grasses shimmered
Against a faery tune.
Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
I
O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.
When Love was born I think he lay
Right warm on Venus' breast,
And whiles he smiled and whiles would play
Wind and hail and veering rain,
Driven mist that veils the day,
Soul's distress and body's pain,
I would bear you while I may.
In the spring I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
I
I cannot heed the words they say,
The lights grow far away and dim,
Amid the laughing men and maids
Gray pilgrim, you have journeyed far,
I pray you tell to me
Is there a land where Love is not,
By shore of any sea?
