Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Read online

My summons came across the endless spaces?

  Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me

  Now that I seek for thee in human faces;

  Answer my prayer or set my spirit free

  Again to drift along the starry places.

  Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens

  (To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey’s painting)

  The other maidens raised their eyes to him

  Who stumbled in before them when the fight

  Had left him victor, with a victor’s right.

  I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;

  He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,

  And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,

  Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light

  As a wan wraith’s beside a river’s rim.

  The other maidens raised their eyes to see

  And only she has hid her face away,

  And yet I ween she loved him more than they,

  And very fairly fashioned was her face.

  Yet for Love’s shame and sweet humility,

  She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.

  To an Aeolian Harp

  The winds have grown articulate in thee,

  And voiced again the wail of ancient woe

  That smote upon the winds of long ago:

  The cries of Trojan women as they flee,

  The quivering moan of pale Andromache,

  Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.

  It is the soul of sorrow that we know,

  As in a shell the soul of all the sea.

  So sometimes in the compass of a song,

  Unknown to him who sings, thro’ lips that live,

  The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands

  Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong

  In sweeping sadness of the winds that give

  Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.

  To Erinna

  Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,

  O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,

  That he has left no word of singing fire

  Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,

  And kindled night along the lyric shore?

  O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,

  Do you go sorrowing because of this

  In fields where poets sing forevermore?

  Or are you glad and is it best to be

  A silent music men have never heard,

  A dream in all our souls that we may say:

  “Her voice had all the rapture of the sea,

  And all the clear cool quiver of a bird

  Deep in a forest at the break of day”?

  To Cleis

  “I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,

  Cleis, the beloved.”

  Sapphic fragment.

  When the dusk was wet with dew,

  Cleis, did the muses nine

  Listen in a silent line

  While your mother sang to you?

  Did they weep or did they smile

  When she crooned to still your cries,

  She, a muse in human guise,

  Who forsook her lyre awhile?

  Did you feel her wild heart beat?

  Did the warmth of all the sun

  Thro’ your little body run

  When she kissed your hands and feet?

  Did your fingers, babywise,

  Touch her face and touch her hair,

  Did you think your mother fair,

  Could you bear her burning eyes?

  Are the songs that soothed your fears

  Vanished like a vanished flame,

  Save the line where shines your name

  Starlike down the graying years?

  Cleis speaks no word to me,

  For the land where she has gone

  Lieth mute at dusk and dawn

  Like a windless tideless sea.

  Paris in Spring

  The city’s all a-shining

  Beneath a fickle sun,

  A gay young wind’s a-blowing,

  The little shower is done.

  But the rain-drops still are clinging

  And falling one by one —

  Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

  And spring-time has begun.

  I know the Bois is twinkling

  In a sort of hazy sheen,

  And down the Champs the gray old arch

  Stands cold and still between.

  But the walk is flecked with sunlight

  Where the great acacias lean,

  Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

  And the leaves are growing green.

  The sun’s gone in, the sparkle’s dead,

  There falls a dash of rain,

  But who would care when such an air

  Comes blowing up the Seine?

  And still Ninette sits sewing

  Beside her window-pane,

  When it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

  And spring-time’s come again.

  Madeira from the Sea

  Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges

  Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea;

  Softly the dream grows awakening — shimmering white of a city,

  Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms.

  High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers,

  Lost and forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep,

  Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.

  City Vignettes

  I

  Dawn

  The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,

  The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,

  The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,

  And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.

  II

  Dusk

  The city’s street, a roaring blackened stream

  Walled in by granite, thro’ whose thousand eyes

  A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,

  And over all the pale untroubled skies.

  III

  Rain at Night

  The street-lamps shine in a yellow line

  Down the splashy, gleaming street,

  And the rain is heard now loud now blurred

  By the tread of homing feet.

  By the Sea

  Beside an ebbing northern sea

  While stars awaken one by one,

  We walk together, I and he.

  He woos me with an easy grace

  That proves him only half sincere;

  A light smile flickers on his face.

  To him love-making is an art,

  And as a flutist plays a flute,

  So does he play upon his heart

  A music varied to his whim.

  He has no use for love of mine,

  He would not have me answer him.

  To hide my eyes within the night

  I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam

  Alternately with red and white.

  My laughter smites upon my ears,

  So one who cries and wakes from sleep

  Knows not it is himself he hears.

  What if my voice should let him know

  The mocking words were all a sham,

  And lips that laugh could tremble so?

  What if I lost the power to lie,

  And he should only hear his name

  In one low, broken cry?

  On the Death of Swinburne

  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,

  He left the singing and the lyre and went his way.

  He drew new music from our tongue,

  A music subtly wrought,

  And moulded words to his desire,

  As wind doth mould a wave of fire;

  From strangely fash
ioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.

  I think the singing understands

  That he who sang is still,

  And Iseult cries that he is dead, —

  Does not Dolores bow her head

  And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?

  New singing now the singer hears

  To lyre and lute and harp;

  Catullus waits to welcome him,

  And thro’ the twilight sweet and dim,

  Sappho’s forgotten songs are falling on his ears.

  Triolets

  I

  Love looked back as he took his flight,

  And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.

  Was it for love of lost delight

  Love looked back as he took his flight?

  Only I know while day grew night,

  Turning still to the vanished years,

  Love looked back as he took his flight,

  And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.

  II

  (Written in a copy of “La Vita Nuova”. For M. C. S.)

  If you were Lady Beatrice

  And I the Florentine,

  I’d never waste my time like this —

  If you were Lady Beatrice

  I’d woo and then demand a kiss,

  Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,

  If you were Lady Beatrice

  And I the Florentine.

  III

  (Written in a copy of “The Poems of Sappho”.)

  Beyond the dim Hesperides,

  The girl who sang them long ago

  Could never dream that over seas,

  Beyond the dim Hesperides,

  The wind would blow such songs as these —

  I wonder now if she can know,

  Beyond the dim Hesperides,

  The girl who sang them long ago?

  IV

  Dead leaves upon the stream

  And dead leaves on the air —

  All of my lost hopes seem

  Dead leaves upon the stream;

  I watch them in a dream,

  Going I know not where,

  Dead leaves upon the stream

  And dead leaves on the air.

  Vox Corporis

  The beast to the beast is calling,

  And the soul bends down to wait;

  Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,

  The white man calls his mate.

  The beast to the beast is calling,

  They rush through the twilight sweet,

  But the soul is a wary hunter,

  He will not let them meet.

  A Ballad of Two Knights

  Two knights rode forth at early dawn

  A-seeking maids to wed,

  Said one, “My lady must be fair,

  With gold hair on her head.”

  Then spake the other knight-at-arms:

  “I care not for her face,

  But she I love must be a dove

  For purity and grace.”

  And each knight blew upon his horn

  And went his separate way,

  And each knight found a lady-love

  Before the fall of day.

  But she was brown who should have had

  The shining yellow hair —

  I ween the knights forgot their words

  Or else they ceased to care.

  For he who wanted purity

  Brought home a wanton wild,

  And when each saw the other knight

  I ween that each knight smiled.

  Christmas Carol

  The kings they came from out the south,

  All dressed in ermine fine,

  They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,

  And gifts of precious wine.

  The shepherds came from out the north,

  Their coats were brown and old,

  They brought Him little new-born lambs —

  They had not any gold.

  The wise-men came from out the east,

  And they were wrapped in white;

  The star that led them all the way

  Did glorify the night.

  The angels came from heaven high,

  And they were clad with wings;

  And lo, they brought a joyful song

  The host of heaven sings.

  The kings they knocked upon the door,

  The wise-men entered in,

  The shepherds followed after them

  To hear the song begin.

  And Mary held the little child

  And sat upon the ground;

  She looked up, she looked down,

  She looked all around.

  The angels sang thro’ all the night

  Until the rising sun,

  But little Jesus fell asleep

  Before the song was done.

  The Faery Forest

  The faery forest glimmered

  Beneath an ivory moon,

  The silver grasses shimmered

  Against a faery tune.

  Beneath the silken silence

  The crystal branches slept,

  And dreaming thro’ the dew-fall

  The cold white blossoms wept.

  A Fantasy

  Her voice is like clear water

  That drips upon a stone

  In forests far and silent

  Where Quiet plays alone.

  Her thoughts are like the lotus

  Abloom by sacred streams

  Beneath the temple arches

  Where Quiet sits and dreams.

  Her kisses are the roses

  That glow while dusk is deep

  In Persian garden closes

  Where Quiet falls asleep.

  A Minuet of Mozart’s

  Across the dimly lighted room

  The violin drew wefts of sound,

  Airily they wove and wound

  And glimmered gold against the gloom.

  I watched the music turn to light,

  But at the pausing of the bow,

  The web was broken and the glow

  Was drowned within the wave of night.

  Twilight

  Dreamily over the roofs

  The cold spring rain is falling,

  Out in the lonely tree

  A bird is calling, calling.

  Slowly over the earth

  The wings of night are falling;

  My heart like the bird in the tree

  Is calling, calling, calling.

  The Prayer

  My answered prayer came up to me,

  And in the silence thus spake he:

  “O you who prayed for me to come,

  Your greeting is but cold and dumb.”

  My heart made answer: “You are fair,

  But I have prayed too long to care.

  Why came you not when all was new,

  And I had died for joy of you.”

  Two Songs for a Child

  I

  Grandfather’s Love

  They said he sent his love to me,

  They wouldn’t put it in my hand,

  And when I asked them where it was

  They said I couldn’t understand.

  I thought they must have hidden it,

  I hunted for it all the day,

  And when I told them so at night

  They smiled and turned their heads away.

  They say that love is something kind,

  That I can never see or touch.

  I wish he’d sent me something else,

  I like his cough-drops twice as much.

  II

  The Kind Moon

  I think the moon is very kind

  To take such trouble just for me.

  He came along with me from home

  To keep me company.

  He went as fast as I could run;

  I wonder how he crossed the sky?

  I’m sure he hasn’t legs and feet

  Or any wings to fly.

  Yet here he is above their roof;

  Perhaps he thin
ks it isn’t right

  For me to go so far alone,

  Tho’ mother said I might.

  On the Tower

  A play in one act.

  Under the leaf of many a Fable lies the Truth for those who look for it.

  Jami.

  The Knight.

  The Lady.

  Voices of men and women on the ground at the foot of the tower.

  The voice of the Knight’s Page.

  The top of a high battlemented tower of a castle. A stone ledge,

  which serves as a seat, extends part way around the parapet.

  Small clouds float by in the blue sky, and occasionally a swallow

  passes.

  Entrance R. from an unseen stairway which is supposed to extend

  around the outside of the tower.

  The Lady (unseen).

  Oh do not climb so fast, for I am faint

  With looking down the tower to where the earth

  Lies dreaming in the sun. I fear to fall.

  The Knight (unseen).

  Lean on me, love, my love, and look not down.

  L.

  Call me not “love”, call me your conquered foe,

  That now, since you have battered down her gates,

  Gives you the keys that lock the highest tower

  And mounts with you to prove her homage true;

  Oh bid me go no farther lest I fall,

  My foot has slipped upon the rain-worn stones,

  Why are the stairs so narrow and so steep?

  Let us go back, my lord.

  K.

  Are you afraid,

  Who were so dauntless till the walls gave way?

  Courage, my sweet. I would that I could climb

  A thousand times by wind-swept stairs like these,

  That lead so near to heaven.

  L.

  Sir, you may,

  You are a knight and very valorous;

  I am a woman. I shall never come

  This way but once.

  (The Knight and the Lady appear on the top of the tower.)

  K.

  Kiss me at last, my love.

  L.

  Oh, my sweet lord, I am too tired to kiss.

  Look how the earth is like an emerald,

  With rivers veined and flawed with fallow fields.

  K. (Lifting her veil)

  Then I kiss you, a thousand thousand kisses

  For all the days ere I had won to you

  Beyond the walls and gates you barred so close.