Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Read online

  And dew still glistened on the tangled thorn,

  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.

  Then maidens bearing parsley in their hands

  Wound thro’ the groves to where the goddess stands,

  And mariners might sail for unknown lands

  Past sea-clasped islands veiled in mystery —

  And Venus still was shining from the sea,

  And Ceres had not lost Persephone.

  To Sappho, II

  II

  Your lines that linger for us down the years,

  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.

  Oh tell us we shall find beside the Nile,

  Held fast in some Egyptian’s dusty hand,

  Deep covered by the centuries of sand,

  The songs long written that were lost awhile —

  ⁠ Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,

  ⁠ Let fall from that far heaven of thine

  ⁠ This golden word.

  To L.R.E

  When first I saw you — felt you take my hand,

  I could not speak for happiness to find

  How more than all they said your heart was kind,

  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.”

  So, silent, long ago I used to look

  High up along the shelves at one great book,

  And longed to see its contents, childishwise,

  And now I know it for my Poet’s own, —

  So sometime shall I know you and be known,

  And looking upward, I shall find your eyes.

  The Meeting

  I’m happy, I’m happy,

  I saw my love to-day.

  He came along the crowded street,

  By all the ladies gay,

  And oh, he smiled and spoke to me

  Before he went his way.

  My throat was tight with happiness,

  I couldn’t say a word,

  My heart was beating fast, so fast

  I’m sure he must have heard;

  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.

  The Gift

  What can I give you, my lord, my lover,

  You who have given the world to me,

  Showed me the light and the joy that cover

  The wild sweet earth and the restless sea?

  All that I have are gifts of your giving —

  If I gave them again, you would find them old,

  And your soul would weary of always living

  Before the mirror my life would hold.

  What shall I give you, my lord, my lover?

  The gift that breaks the heart in me:

  I bid you awake at dawn and discover

  I have gone my way and left you free.

  Dead Love

  God let me listen to your voice,

  And look upon you for a space —

  And then he took your voice away,

  And dropped a veil before your face.

  God let me look within your eyes,

  And touch for once your clinging hand,

  And then he left me all alone,

  And took you to the Silent Land.

  I cannot weep, I cannot pray,

  My heart has very silent grown,

  I only watch how God gives love,

  And then leaves lovers all alone.

  The Love that Goes A-begging

  Oh Loves there are that enter in,

  And Loves there are that wait,

  And Loves that sit a-weeping

  Whose joy will come too late.

  For some there be that ope their doors,

  And some there be that close,

  And Love must go a-begging,

  But whither, no one knows.

  His feet are on the thorny ways,

  And on the dew-cold grass,

  No ears have ever heard him sing,

  No eyes have seen him pass.

  And yet he wanders thro’ the world

  And makes the meadows sweet,

  For all his tears and weariness

  Have flowered beneath his feet.

  The little purple violet

  Has marked his wanderings,

  And in the wind among the trees,

  You hear the song he sings.

  Song

  Like some rare queen of old romance

  Who loved the gleam of helm and lance

  ⁠ Is she.

  A harper of King Arthur’s days

  Should praise her in a hundred lays:

  The queen of Love and Chivalry —

  O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie.

  And crown-wise plaited is her hair,

  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;

  The queens were gracious long ago,

  ⁠ Ah me!

  Queen Guenevere would give a kiss

  Ofttimes to Launcelot, I wis —

  I would that I were loved as he!

  O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie.

  Wishes

  I wish for such a lot of things

  That never will come true —

  And yet I want them all so much

  I think they might, don’t you?

  I want a little kitty-cat

  That’s soft and tame and sweet,

  And every day I watch and hope

  I’ll find one in the street.

  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.

  One time when I was in the park

  I knew that it would be

  Beside the big old clock at home

  A-waiting there for me —

  And soon as we got home again,

  I hurried thro’ the hall,

  And looked beside the big old clock —

  It wasn’t there at all.

  I think I’ll never wish again —

  But then, what shall I do?

  The wishes are a lot of fun

  Altho’ they don’t come true.

  Dusk in Autumn

  The moon is like a scimitar,

  A little silver scimitar,

  A-drifting down the sky.

  And near beside it is a star,

  A timid twinkling golden star,

  That watches like an eye.

  And thro’ the nursery window-pane

  The witches have a fire again,

  Just like the ones we make, —

  And now I know they’re having tea,

  I wish they’d give
a cup to me,

  With witches’ currant cake.

  In David’s “Child’s Garden of Verses”

  The dearest child in all the world,

  ⁠ Should have the dearest songs,

  And that is why this little book

  ⁠ To David-Boy belongs.

  Triolets

  Before a lonely shrine

  Of foam-born Aphrodite,

  Ungarlanded of vine,

  Undyed by dripping wine,

  I brought green bay to twine,

  And prayed to her, almighty, —

  And lo, the prayer of mine

  Was heard of Aphrodite.

  I sang of answered prayer,

  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.

  Sonnet

  I saw a ship sail forth at evening time;

  Her prow was gilded by the western fire,

  And all her rigging one vast golden lyre,

  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.

  I saw her come again when dawn was grey,

  Her wonder faded and her splendor dead —

  She whom I loved once had upon her way

  A light most like the sunset. Now ’tis sped.

  And this is saddest — what seemed wondrous fair

  Are now but straight pale lips, and dull gold hair.

  Dream Song

  I plucked a snow-drop in the spring,

  And in my hand too closely pressed;

  The warmth had hurt the tender thing,

  I grieved to see it withering.

  I gave my love a poppy red,

  And laid it on her snow-cold breast;

  But poppies need a warmer bed,

  We wept to find the flower was dead.

  To Joy

  Lo, I am happy, for my eyes have seen

  Joy glowing here before me, face to face;

  His wings were arched above me for a space,

  I kissed his lips, no bitter came between.

  The air is vibrant where his feet have been,

  And full of song and color is his place.

  His wondrous presence sheds about a grace

  That lifts and hallows all that once was mean.

  I may not sorrow for I saw the light,

  Tho’ I shall walk in valley ways for long,

  I still shall hear the echo of the song, —

  My life is measured by its one great height.

  Joy holds more grace than pain can ever give,

  And by my glimpse of joy my soul shall live.

  Roses and Rue

  Bring me the roses white and red,

  ⁠ And take the laurel leaves away;

  Yea, wreathe the roses round my head

  ⁠ That wearies ‘neath the crown of bay.

  “We searched the wintry forests thro’

  ⁠ And found no roses anywhere —

  But we have brought a little rue

  ⁠ To twine a circlet for your hair.”

  I would not pluck the rose in May,

  ⁠ I wove a laurel crown instead;

  And when the crown is cast away,

  ⁠ They bring me rue — the rose is dead.

  The Heart’s House

  My heart is but a little house

  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.

  For you would never be content

  With just a corner in my room,

  Yea, if you came the rest must go

  ⁠ Into the gloom.

  And so, farewell, O friend, my friend!

  Nay, I could weep a little too,

  But I shall only smile and say

  ⁠ Farewell to you.

  The House of Dreams

  I built a little House of Dreams,

  ⁠ And fenced it all about,

  But still I heard the Wind of Truth

  ⁠ That roared without.

  I laid a fire of Memories

  ⁠ And sat before the glow,

  But through the chinks and round the door

  ⁠ The wind would blow.

  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.

  Faults

  They came to tell your faults to me,

  They named them over one by one,

  I laughed aloud when they were done;

  I knew them all so well before, —

  Oh they were blind, too blind to see

  Your faults had made me love you more.

  Helen of Troy and Other Poems, 1911

  CONTENTS

  Helen of Troy

  Beatrice

  Sappho

  Marianna Alcoforando

  Guenevere

  Erinna

  Love Songs

  Song

  The Rose and the Bee

  The Song Maker

  Wild Asters

  When Love Goes

  The Wayfarer

  The Princess in the Tower

  When Love Was Born

  The Shrine

  The Blind

  Love Me

  The Song for Colin

  Four Winds

  Roundel

  Dew

  A Maiden

  I Love You

  But Not to Me

  Hidden Love

  Snow Song

  Youth and the Pilgrim

  The Wanderer

  I Would Live in Your Love

  May

  Rispetto

  Less than the Cloud to the Wind

  Buried Love

  Song

  Pierrot

  At Night

  Song

  Love in Autumn

  The Kiss

  November

  A Song of the Princess

  The Wind

  A Winter Night

  The Metropolitan Tower

  Gramercy Park

  In the Metropolitan Museum

  Coney Island

  Union Square

  Central Park at Dusk

  Young Love

  Sonnets and Lyrics

  Soul’s Birth

  Love and Death

  For the Anniversary of John Keats’ Death

  Silence

  The Return

  Fear

  Anadyomene

  Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens

  To an Aeolian Harp

  To Erinna

  To Cleis

  Paris in Spring

  Madeira from the Sea

  City Vignettes

  By the Sea

  On the Death of Swinburne

  Triolets

  Vox Corporis

  A Ballad of Two Knights

  Christmas Carol

  The Faery Forest

  A Fantasy

  A Minuet of Mozart’s

  Twilight

  The Prayer

  Two Songs for a Child

  On the Tower

  The first edition’s title page

  Helen of Troy

  Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn

  The flames’
red wings soar upward duskily.

  This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead

  That sparkled so the day I saw it first,

  And darkened slowly after. I am she

  Who loves all beauty — yet I wither it.

  Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath —

  Forever since my maidenhood to sow

  Sorrow and blood about me? Lo, they keep

  Their bitter care above me even now.

  It was the gods who led me to this lair,

  That tho’ the burning winds should make me weak,

  They should not snatch the life from out my lips.

  Olympus let the other women die;

  They shall be quiet when the day is done

  And have no care to-morrow. Yet for me

  There is no rest. The gods are not so kind

  To her made half immortal like themselves.

  It is to you I owe the cruel gift,

  Leda, my mother, and the Swan, my sire,

  To you the beauty and to you the bale;

  For never woman born of man and maid

  Had wrought such havoc on the earth as I,

  Or troubled heaven with a sea of flame

  That climbed to touch the silent whirling stars

  And blotted out their brightness ere the dawn.

  Have I not made the world to weep enough?

  Give death to me. Yet life is more than death;

  How could I leave the sound of singing winds,

  The strong sweet scent that breathes from off the sea,

  Or shut my eyes forever to the spring?

  I will not give the grave my hands to hold,

  My shining hair to light oblivion.

  Have those who wander through the ways of death,

  The still wan fields Elysian, any love

  To lift their breasts with longing, any lips

  To thirst against the quiver of a kiss?

  Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again,

  To make the people love, who hate me now.

  My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry

  Against the fate that made men love my mouth

  And left their spirits all too deaf to hear

  The little songs that echoed through my soul.

  I have no anger now. The dreams are done;

  Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see

  Aught but my body’s fairness, till the end,

  In all the islands set in all the seas,

  And all the lands that lie beneath the sun,