Like a miser's gold
In
forsaken fields
Where the wind is cold.
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned --
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind.
Songs For Myself
XII
The Tree
Oh to be free of myself,
With nothing left to remember,
To have my heart as bare
As a tree in December;
Resting, as a tree rests
After its leaves are gone,
Waiting no more for a rain at night
Nor for the red at dawn;
But still, oh so still
While the winds come and go,
With no more fear of the hard frost
Or the bright burden of snow;
And
heedless,
heedlessIf anyone pass and see
On the white page of the sky
Its thin black tracery.
At Midnight
Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men's praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.
Song Making
My heart cried like a
beaten child
Ceaselessly all night long;
I had to take my own cries
And thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnight
And one when the first cock crew --
My heart was like a
beaten child,
But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debt
And I must serve you long --
But oh, the debt is terrible
That must be paid in song.
Alone
I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give --
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;
With earth
hidden and heaven
hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not
lonely, having died.
Red Maples
In the last year I have learned
How few men are worth my trust;
I have seen the friend I loved
Struck by death into the dust,
And fears I never knew before
Have knocked and knocked upon my door --
"I shall hope little and ask for less,"
I said, "There is no happiness."
I have grown wise at last -- but how
Can I hide the gleam on the willow-bough,
Or keep the
fragrance out of the rain
Now that April is here again?
When maples stand in a haze of fire
What can I say to the old desire,
What shall I do with the joy in me
That is born out of agony?
Debtor
So long as my spirit still
Is glad of breath
And lifts its plumes of pride
In the dark face of death;
While I am curious still
Of love and fame,
Keeping my heart too high
For the years to tame,
How can I quarrel with fate
Since I can see
I am a
debtor to life,
Not life to me?
The Wind in the Hemlock
Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the
hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.
With
envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at your clear
immortal cup,
Changing to gold from dusky red --
Age after age when I am dead
To be filled up with light, and then
Emptied, to be refilled again.
What has man done that only he
Is slave to death -- so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?
Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your
fragrant boughs
There moves no anger and no doubt,
No envy of
immortal things.
The night-wind murmurs of the sea
With veiled music ceaselessly,
That to my
shaken spirit sings.
From their frail nest the robins rouse,
In your pungent darkness stirred,
Twittering a low
drowsy word --
And me you shelter, even me.
In your quietness you house
The wind, the woman and the bird.
You speak to me and I have heard:
If I am
peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be
wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.
[End of original text.]
Biographical Note:
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933):
Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended a school
that was founded by the
grandfather of another great poet from St. Louis --
T. S. Eliot. She later associated herself more with New York City.
Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907),
but "Helen of Troy" (1911) was the true
launch of her career,
followed by "Rivers to the Sea" (1915), "Love Songs" (1917),
"Flame and Shadow" (1920) and more. Her final
volume, "Strange Victory",
is considered by many to be predictive of her
suicide in 1933.
----
From an anthology of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1913, 1917):
"Teasdale, Sara (Mrs. Ernst B. Filsinger). Born in St. Louis, Missouri,
August 10, 1884. Educated at private schools. She is the author
of "Sonnets to Duse", 1907; "Helen of Troy, and Other Poems", 1911;
"Rivers to the Sea", 1915; "Love Songs", 1917. Editor of
"The Answering Voice: A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women", 1917.
Miss Teasdale is a lyric poet of an
unusually pure and
spontaneous gift."
End