Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Read online

At Night

  Love said, “Wake still and think of me,”

  Sleep, “Close your eyes till break of day,”

  But Dreams came by and smilingly

  Gave both to Love and Sleep their way.

  Song

  When Love comes singing to his heart

  That would not wake for me,

  I think that I shall know his joy

  By my own ecstasy.

  And tho’ the sea were all between,

  The time their hands shall meet,

  My heart will know his happiness,

  So wildly it will beat.

  And when he bends above her mouth,

  Rejoicing for his sake,

  My soul will sing a little song,

  But oh, my heart will break.

  Love in Autumn

  I sought among the drifting leaves,

  The golden leaves that once were green,

  To see if Love were hiding there

  And peeping out between.

  For thro’ the silver showers of May

  And thro’ the summer’s heavy heat,

  In vain I sought his golden head

  And light, fast-flying feet.

  Perhaps when all the world is bare

  And cruel winter holds the land,

  The Love that finds no place to hide

  Will run and catch my hand.

  I shall not care to have him then,

  I shall be bitter and a-cold —

  It grows too late for frolicking

  When all the world is old.

  Then little hiding Love, come forth,

  Come forth before the autumn goes,

  And let us seek thro’ ruined paths

  The garden’s last red rose.

  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 tho’ I know he loves me,

  To-night my heart is sad;

  His kiss was not so wonderful

  As all the dreams I had.

  November

  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.

  Our love is dying like the grass,

  And we who kissed grow coldly kind,

  Half glad to see our poor love pass

  Like leaves along the wind.

  A Song of the Princess

  The princess has her lovers,

  A score of knights has she,

  And each can sing a madrigal,

  And praise her gracefully.

  But Love that is so bitter

  Hath put within her heart

  A longing for the scornful knight

  Who silent stands apart.

  And tho’ the others praise and plead,

  She maketh no reply,

  Yet for a single word from him,

  I ween that she would die.

  The Wind

  A wind is blowing over my soul,

  I hear it cry the whole night thro’ —

  Is there no peace for me on earth

  Except with you?

  Alas, the wind has made me wise,

  Over my naked soul it blew, —

  There is no peace for me on earth

  Even with you.

  A Winter Night

  My window-pane is starred with frost,

  The world is bitter cold to-night,

  The moon is cruel and the wind

  Is like a two-edged sword to smite.

  God pity all the homeless ones,

  The beggars pacing to and fro.

  God pity all the poor to-night

  Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.

  My room is like a bit of June,

  Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,

  But somewhere, like a homeless child,

  My heart is crying in the cold.

  The Metropolitan Tower

  We walked together in the dusk

  To watch the tower grow dimly white,

  And saw it lift against the sky

  Its flower of amber light.

  You talked of half a hundred things,

  I kept each little word you said;

  And when at last the hour was full,

  I saw the light turn red.

  You did not know the time had come,

  You did not see the sudden flower,

  Nor know that in my heart Love’s birth

  Was reckoned from that hour.

  Gramercy Park

  For W. P.

  The little park was filled with peace,

  The walks were carpeted with snow,

  But every iron gate was locked.

  Lest if we entered, peace would go.

  We circled it a dozen times,

  The wind was blowing from the sea,

  I only felt your restless eyes

  Whose love was like a cloak for me.

  Oh heavy gates that fate has locked

  To bar the joy we may not win,

  Peace would go out forevermore

  If we should dare to enter in.

  In the Metropolitan Museum

  Within the tiny Pantheon

  We stood together silently,

  Leaving the restless crowd awhile

  As ships find shelter from the sea.

  The ancient centuries came back

  To cover us a moment’s space,

  And thro’ the dome the light was glad

  Because it shone upon your face.

  Ah, not from Rome but farther still,

  Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,

  The moment took us, till you stooped

  To find the present with a kiss.

  Coney Island

  Why did you bring me here?

  The sand is white with snow,

  Over the wooden domes

  The winter sea-winds blow —

  There is no shelter near,

  Come, let us go.

  With foam of icy lace

  The sea creeps up the sand,

  The wind is like a hand

  That strikes us in the face.

  Doors that June set a-swing

  Are bolted long ago;

  We try them uselessly —

  Alas, there cannot be

  For us a second spring;

  Come, let us go.

  Union Square

  With the man I love who loves me not,

  I walked in the street-lamps’ flare;

  We watched the world go home that night

  In a flood through Union Square.

  I leaned to catch the words he said

  That were light as a snowflake falling;

  Ah well that he never leaned to hear

  The words my heart was calling.

  And on we walked and on we walked

  Past the fiery lights of the picture shows —

  Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by

  On the errand each man knows.

  And on we walked and on we walked,

  At the door at last we said good-bye;

  I knew by his smile he had not heard

  My heart’s unuttered cry.

  With the man I love who loves me not

  I walked in the street-lamps’ flare —

  But oh, the girls who can ask for love

  In the lights of Union Square.

  Central Park at Dusk

  Buildings above the leafless trees

  Loom high as castles in a dream,

  While one by one the lamps come out

  To thread the twilight with a gleam.

  There is no sign of leaf or bud,

  A hush is over everything —

  Silent as women wait for love,

  The world is waiting for the spring.

  Young Love

  I

  I cannot heed the words they say,

/>   The lights grow far away and dim,

  Amid the laughing men and maids

  My eyes unbidden seek for him.

  I hope that when he smiles at me

  He does not guess my joy and pain,

  For if he did, he is too kind

  To ever look my way again.

  II

  I have a secret in my heart

  No ears have ever heard,

  And still it sings there day by day

  Most like a caged bird.

  And when it beats against the bars,

  I do not set it free,

  For I am happier to know

  It only sings for me.

  III

  I wrote his name along the beach,

  I love the letters so.

  Far up it seemed and out of reach,

  For still the tide was low.

  But oh, the sea came creeping up,

  And washed the name away,

  And on the sand where it had been

  A bit of sea-grass lay.

  A bit of sea-grass on the sand,

  Dropped from a mermaid’s hair —

  Ah, had she come to kiss his name

  And leave a token there?

  IV

  What am I that he should love me,

  He who stands so far above me,

  What am I?

  I am like a cowslip turning

  Toward the sky,

  Where a planet’s golden burning

  Breaks the cowslip’s heart with yearning,

  What am I that he should love me,

  What am I?

  V

  O dreams that flock about my sleep,

  I pray you bring my love to me,

  And let me think I hear his voice

  Again ring free.

  And if you care to please me well,

  And live to-morrow in my mind,

  Let him who was so cold before,

  To-night seem kind.

  VI

  I plucked a daisy in the fields,

  And there beneath the sun

  I let its silver petals fall

  One after one.

  I said, “He loves me, loves me not,”

  And oh, my heart beat fast,

  The flower was kind, it let me say

  “He loves me,” last.

  I kissed the little leafless stem,

  But oh, my poor heart knew

  The words the flower had said to me,

  They were not true.

  VII

  I sent my love a letter,

  And if he loves me not,

  He shall not find my love for him

  In any line or dot.

  But if he loves me truly,

  He’ll find it hidden deep,

  As dawn gleams red thro’ chilly clouds

  To eyes awaked from sleep.

  VIII

  The world is cold and gray and wet,

  And I am heavy-hearted, yet

  When I am home and look to see

  The place my letters wait for me,

  If I should find ONE letter there,

  I think I should not greatly care

  If it were rainy or were fair,

  For all the world would suddenly

  Seem like a festival to me.

  IX

  I hid three words within my heart,

  That longed to fly to him,

  At dawn they woke me with a start,

  They sang till day was dim.

  And now at last I let them fly,

  As little birds should do,

  And he will know the first is “I”,

  The others “Love” and “You”.

  X

  Across the twilight’s violet

  His curtained window glimmers gold;

  Oh happy light that round my love

  Can fold.

  Oh happy book within his hand,

  Oh happy page he glorifies,

  Oh happy little word beneath

  His eyes.

  But oh, thrice happy, happy I

  Who love him more than songs can tell,

  For in the heaven of his heart

  I dwell.

  Sonnets and Lyrics

  Primavera Mia

  As kings who see their little life-day pass,

  Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,

  So had the trees that autumn-time laid down

  Their golden garments on the faded grass,

  When I, who watched the seasons in the glass

  Of mine own thoughts, saw all the autumn’s brown

  Leap into life and don a sunny gown

  Of leafage such as happy April has.

  Great spring came singing upward from the south;

  For in my heart, far carried on the wind,

  Your words like winged seeds took root and grew,

  And all the world caught music from your mouth;

  I saw the light as one who had been blind,

  And knew my sun and song and spring were you.

  Soul’s Birth

  When you were born, beloved, was your soul

  New made by God to match your body’s flower,

  And were they both at one same precious hour

  Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?

  Or had your soul since dim creation burned,

  A star in some still region of the sky,

  That leaping earthward, left its place on high

  And to your little new-born body yearned?

  No words can tell in what celestial hour

  God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,

  Nor in the disarray of all the stars

  Is any place so sweet that such a flower

  Might linger there until thro’ heaven’s bars,

  It heard God’s voice that bade it down to earth.

  Love and Death

  Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,

  And shall my soul that lies within your hand

  Remember nothing, as the blowing sand

  Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep

  When winds along the darkened desert sweep?

  Or would it still remember, tho’ it spanned

  A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned

  The vacant ether with their voices deep?

  Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,

  Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see

  The desolation of extinguished suns,

  Nor fear the void wherethro’ our planet runs,

  For still together shall we go and not

  Fare forth alone to front eternity.

  For the Anniversary of John Keats’ Death

  (February 23, 1821)

  At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees

  Have woven round his grave a magic shade,

  Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,

  There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze

  Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.

  And stooping where her poet’s head is laid,

  Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed

  And swaying seas are darkened into peace.

  But they who wake the meadows and the tides

  Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep

  Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,

  Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,

  And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone

  With visions of the sunny earth and sea.

  Silence

  (To Eleonora Duse)

  We are anhungered after solitude,

  Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,

  Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,

  The silences that on the desert brood,

  Above a windless hush of empty seas,

  The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,

  A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;

  Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.

  O woman who
divined our weariness,

  And set the crown of silence on your art,

  From what undreamed-of depth within your heart

  Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free

  To hear an instant, high above earth’s stress,

  The silent music of infinity?

  The Return

  I turned the key and opened wide the door

  To enter my deserted room again,

  Where thro’ the long hot months the dust had lain.

  Was it not lonely when across the floor

  No step was heard, no sudden song that bore

  My whole heart upward with a joyous pain?

  Were not the pictures and the volumes fain

  To have me with them always as before?

  But Giorgione’s Venus did not deign

  To lift her lids, nor did the subtle smile

  Of Mona Lisa deepen. Madeleine

  Still wept against the glory of her hair,

  Nor did the lovers part their lips the while,

  But kissed unheeding that I watched them there.

  Fear

  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

  And leave the little child who would have prayed,

  Frozen and sleepless at the thought of death.

  My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon;

  I shall not know if it be night or noon, —

  Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath?

  Will no one fight the Terror for my sake,

  The heavy darkness that no dawn will break?

  How can they leave me in that dark alone,

  Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much,

  And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch, —

  How can they shut me underneath a stone?

  Anadyomene

  The wide, bright temple of the world I found,

  And entered from the dizzy infinite

  That I might kneel and worship thee in it;

  Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round

  Of silver music sound on orbed sound,

  For measured spaces where the shrines are lit,

  And men with wisdom or with little wit

  Implore the gods that mercy may abound.

  Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee