Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Read online

  Shall I be faithless to myself

  Or to you?

  The Kiss

  I hoped that he would love me,

  And he has kissed my mouth,

  But I am like a stricken bird

  That cannot reach the south.

  For though I know he loves me,

  To-night my heart is sad;

  His kiss was not so wonderful

  As all the dreams I had.

  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.

  I came at last to the ocean

  And found it wild and black,

  And I cried to the windless valleys,

  “Be kind and take me back!”

  But the thirsty tide ran inland,

  And the salt waves drank of me,

  And I who was fresh as the rainfall

  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.

  Spring Rain

  I thought I had forgotten,

  But it all came back again

  To-night with the first spring thunder

  In a rush of rain.

  I remembered a darkened doorway

  Where we stood while the storm swept by,

  Thunder gripping the earth

  And lightning scrawled on the sky.

  The passing motor busses swayed,

  For the street was a river of rain,

  Lashed into little golden waves

  In the lamp light’s stain.

  With the wild spring rain and thunder

  My heart was wild and gay;

  Your eyes said more to me that night

  Than your lips would ever say. . . .

  I thought I had forgotten,

  But it all came back again

  To-night with the first spring thunder

  In a rush of rain.

  The Ghost

  I went back to the clanging city,

  I went back where my old loves stayed,

  But my heart was full of my new love’s glory,

  My eyes were laughing and unafraid.

  I met one who had loved me madly

  And told his love for all to hear —

  But we talked of a thousand things together,

  The past was buried too deep to fear.

  I met the other, whose love was given

  With never a kiss and scarcely a word —

  Oh, it was then the terror took me

  Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.

  Oh, love that lives its life with laughter

  Or love that lives its life with tears

  Can die — but love that is never spoken

  Goes like a ghost through the winding years. . . .

  I went back to the clanging city,

  I went back where my old loves stayed,

  My heart was full of my new love’s glory, —

  But my eyes were suddenly afraid.

  Summer Night, Riverside

  In the wild, soft summer darkness

  How many and many a night we two together

  Sat in the park and watched the Hudson

  Wearing her lights like golden spangles

  Glinting on black satin.

  The rail along the curving pathway

  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.

  And now, far off

  In the fragrant darkness

  The tree is tremulous again with bloom,

  For June comes back.

  To-night what girl

  Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair

  This year’s blossoms, clinging in its coils?

  Jewels

  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.

  PART II.

  Interlude: Songs out of Sorrow

  I. Spirit’s House

  From naked stones of agony

  I will build a house for me;

  As a mason all alone

  I will raise it, stone by stone,

  And every stone where I have bled

  Will show a sign of dusky red.

  I have not gone the way in vain,

  For I have good of all my pain;

  My spirit’s quiet house will be

  Built of naked stones I trod

  On roads where I lost sight of God.

  II. Mastery

  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.

  III. Lessons

  Unless I learn to ask no help

  From any other soul but mine,

  To seek no strength in waving reeds

  Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;

  Unless I learn to look at Grief

  Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,

  And take from Pleasure fearlessly

  Whatever gifts will make me wise —

  Unless I learn these things on earth,

  Why was I ever given birth?

  IV. Wisdom

  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.

  V. In a Burying Ground

  This is the spot where I will lie

  When life has had enough of me,

  These are the grasses that will blow

  Above me like a living sea.
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  These gay old lilies will not shrink

  To draw their life from death of mine,

  And I will give my body’s fire

  To make blue flowers on this vine.

  “O Soul,” I said, “have you no tears?

  Was not the body dear to you?”

  I heard my soul say carelessly,

  “The myrtle flowers will grow more blue.”

  VI. Wood Song

  I heard a wood thrush in the dusk

  Twirl three notes and make a star —

  My heart that walked with bitterness

  Came back from very far.

  Three shining notes were all he had,

  And yet they made a starry call —

  I caught life back against my breast

  And kissed it, scars and all.

  VII. Refuge

  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.

  PART III.

  The Flight

  Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,

  Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,

  Let our flight be far in sun or blowing rain —

  But what if I heard my first love calling me again?

  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?

  Dew

  As dew leaves the cobweb lightly

  Threaded with stars,

  Scattering jewels on the fence

  And the pasture bars;

  As dawn leaves the dry grass bright

  And the tangled weeds

  Bearing a rainbow gem

  On each of their seeds;

  So has your love, my lover,

  Fresh as the dawn,

  Made me a shining road

  To travel on,

  Set every common sight

  Of tree or stone

  Delicately alight

  For me alone.

  To-night

  The moon is a curving flower of gold,

  The sky is still and blue;

  The moon was made for the sky to hold,

  And I for you.

  The moon is a flower without a stem,

  The sky is luminous;

  Eternity was made for them,

  To-night for us.

  Ebb Tide

  When the long day goes by

  And I do not see your face,

  The old wild, restless sorrow

  Steals from its hiding place.

  My day is barren and broken,

  Bereft of light and song,

  A sea beach bleak and windy

  That moans the whole day long.

  To the empty beach at ebb tide,

  Bare with its rocks and scars,

  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 would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,

  I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul

  as it leads.

  Because

  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,

  Nor ever with a conquering air

  You thought to draw me unaware —

  Take me, for I love you more

  Than I ever loved before.

  And since the body’s maidenhood

  Alone were neither rare nor good

  Unless with it I gave to you

  A spirit still untrammeled, too,

  Take my dreams and take my mind

  That were masterless as wind;

  And “Master!” I shall say to you

  Since you never asked me to.

  The Tree of Song

  I sang my songs for the rest,

  For you I am still;

  The tree of my song is bare

  On its shining hill.

  For you came like a lordly wind,

  And the leaves were whirled

  Far as forgotten things

  Past the rim of the world.

  The tree of my song stands bare

  Against the blue —

  I gave my songs to the rest,

  Myself to you.

  The Giver

  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.

  Oh, take the sandals off my feet,

  You know not what you do;

  For all my world is in your arms,

  My sun and stars are you.

  April Song

  Willow, in your April gown

  Delicate and gleaming,

  Do you mind in years gone by

  All my dreaming?

  Spring was like a call to me

  That I could not answer,

  I was chained to loneliness,

  I, the dancer.

  Willow, twinkling in the sun,

  Still your leaves and hear me,

  I can answer spring at last,

  Love is near me!

  The Wanderer

  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.

  And many skies have covered me,

  And many winds have blown me forth,

  And I have loved the green, bright north,

  And I have loved the cold, sweet sea.

  But what to me are north and south,

  And what the lure of many lands,

  Since you have leaned to catch my hands

  And lay a kiss upon my mouth.

  The Years

  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.

  The years went by and never knew

  That each one brought me nearer you;

  Their path was narrow and apart

  And yet it led me to your heart —

  Oh, sensitive, shy years, oh, lonely years,

  That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears.

  Enough

  It is enough for me by day

  To walk the same bright earth with him;

  Enough that over us by night

  The same great roof of stars is dim.

  I do not hope to bind the wind

  Or set a fetter on the sea —

  It is enough to feel his love

  Blow by like music over me.

  Come

  Come, when the pale moon like a petal

  Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,

  Come with arms outstretched to take me,

  Come with lips pursed up to cling.

  Come, for life is a frail moth flying,

  Caug
ht 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.

  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!

  Riches

  I have no riches but my thoughts,

  Yet these are wealth enough for me;

  My thoughts of you are golden coins

  Stamped in the mint of memory;

  And I must spend them all in song,

  For thoughts, as well as gold, must be

  Left on the hither side of death

  To gain their immortality.

  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!

  Peace

  Peace flows into me

  As the tide to the pool by the shore;

  It is mine forevermore,

  It will not ebb like the sea.

  I am the pool of blue

  That worships the vivid sky;

  My hopes were heaven-high,

  They are all fulfilled in you.

  I am the pool of gold

  When sunset burns and dies —

  You are my deepening skies;

  Give me your stars to hold.

  Moods