The Long Hill

I must have passed the crest a while ago

And now I am going down--

Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,

But the brambles were always grabbing at the hem of my gown.

All the morning I thought how proud I should be

To stand there straight as a queen,

Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me--

But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.

It was nearly level along the beaten track

And the brambles caught in my gown--

But it's no use now to think of turning back,

The rest of the way will be only going down.

Sara Teasdale

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up,

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstacy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Sara Teasdale

Peace

Peace flows into me

As the tide to the pool by the shore;

It is mine forevermore,

It ebbs not back 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.

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

In the Train

Fields beneath a quilt of snow

From which the rocks and stubble sleep,

And in the west a shy white star

That shivers as it wakes from deep.

The restless rumble of the train,

The drowsy people in the car,

Steel blue twilight in the world,

And in my heart a timid star.

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

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!

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

Alchemy

I lift my heart as spring lifts up

A yellow daisy to the rain;

My heart will be a lovely cup

Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf

That color every drop they hold,

To change the lifeless wine of grief

To living gold.

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

Dooryard Roses

I have come the selfsame path

To the selfsame door,

Years have left the roses there

Burning as before.

While I watch them in the wind

Quick the hot tears start --

Strange so frail a flame outlasts

Fire in the heart.

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

Night in Arizona

The moon is a charring ember

Dying into the dark;

Off in the crouching mountains

Coyotes bark.

The stars are heavy in heaven,

Too great for the sky to hold --

What if they fell and shattered

The earth with gold?

No lights are over the mesa,

The wind is hard and wild,

I stand at the darkened window

And cry like a child.

Sara Teasdale, (1915)

Spring Night

The park is filled with night and fog,

The veils are drawn about the world,

The drowsy lights along the paths

Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming are the empty streets,

Gold and gleaming the misty lake.

The mirrored lights like sunken swords,

Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be

Here with this beauty over me?

My throat should ache with praise, and I

Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

O beauty, are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love

With youth, a singing voice, and eyes

To take earth's wonder with surprise?

Why have I put off my pride,

Why am I unsatisfied,--

I, for whom the pensive night

Binds her cloudy hair with light,--

I, for whom all beauty burns

Like incense in a million urns?

O beauty, are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love?

Sara Teasdale

I Shall Not Care

When I am dead and over me bright April

Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,

I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

When rain bends down the bough;

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

Than you are now.

Sara Teasdale

Night Song of Amalfi

I asked the heaven of stars

What I should I give my love--

It answered me with silence,

Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea

Down where the fishermen go--

It answered me with silence,

Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,

Or I could give him song--

But how can I give silence

My whole life long?

Sara Teasdale

Water Lilies

If you have forgotten water lilies floating

On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,

If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,

Then you can return and not be afraid.

But if you remember, then turn away forever

To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,

There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,

And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.

Sara Teasdale

Two Songs for Solitude

The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into myself again,

I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,

I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball

Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,

Watching the future come and the present go--

And the little shifting pictures of people rushing

In tiny self-importance to and fro.

The Solitary

Let them think I love them more than I do,

Let them think I care, though I go alone,

If it lifts their pride, what is it to me

Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone?

It is one to me that they come or go

If I have myself and the drive of my will,

And strength to climb on a summer night

And watch the stars swarm over the hill.

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,

I have less need now than when I was young

To share myself with every comer,

Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

Sara Teasdale

Wild Asters

In the spring I asked the daisies

If his words were true,

And the clever little daisies

Always knew.

Now the fields are brown and barren,

Bitter autumn blows,

And of all the stupid asters

Not one knows.

Sara Teasdale

May

The wind is tossing the lilacs,

The new leaves laugh in the sun,

And the petals fall on the orchard wall,

But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms

I go a wintry way,

For love that smiled in April

Is false to me in May.

Sara Teasdale

Primavera Mia

As kings, seeing their lives about to pass,

Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,

So had the trees that autumn-time laid down

Their golden garments on the dying grass,

When I, who watched the seasons in the glass

Of my own thoughts, saw all the autumn's brown

Leap into life and wear a sunny gown

Of leafage fresh 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.

Sara Teasdale

A Winter Bluejay

Crisply the bright snow whispered,

Crunching beneath our feet;

Behind us as we walked along the parkway,

Our shadows danced,

Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.

Across the lake the skaters

Flew to and fro,

With sharp turns weaving

A frail invisible net.

In ecstacy the earth

Drank the silver sunlight;

In ecstacy the skaters

Drank the wine of speed;

In ecstacy we laughed

Drinking the wine of love.

Had not the music of our joy

Sounded its highest note?

But no,

For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,

"Oh look!"

There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,

Fearless and gay as our love,

A bluejay cocked his crest!

Oh who can tell the range of joy

Or set the bounds of beauty?

Sara Teasdale

Desert Pools

I love too much; I am a river

Surging with spring that seeks the sea,

I am too generous a giver,

Love will not stoop to drink of me.

His feet will turn to desert places

Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,

Where stars stare down with sharpened faces

From heavens pitilessly blue.

And there at midnight sick with faring,

He will stoop down in his desire

To slake the thirst grown past all bearing

In stagnant water keen as fire.

Sara Teasdale

Leaves

One by one, like leaves from a tree,

All my faiths have forsaken me;

But the stars above my head

Burn in white and delicate red,

And beneath my feet the earth

Brings the sturdy grass to birth.

I who was content to be

But a silken-singing tree,

But a rustle of delight

In the wistful heart of night--

I have lost the leaves that knew

Touch of rain and weight of dew.

Blinded by a leafy crown

I looked neither up nor down--

But the little leaves that die

Have left me room to see the sky;

Now for the first time I know

Stars above and earth below.

Sara Teasdale

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.

Sara Teasdale

The Broken Field

My soul is a dark ploughed field

In the cold rain;

My soul is a broken field

Ploughed by pain.

Where grass and bending flowers

Were growing,

The field lies broken now

For another sowing.

Great Sower when you tread

My field again,

Scatter the furrows there

With better grain.

Sara Teasdale

Snowfall

"She can't be unhappy," you said,

"The smiles are like stars in her eyes,

And her laughter is thistledown

Around her low replies."

"Is she unhappy?" you said--

But who has ever known

Another's heartbreak--

All he can know is his own;

And she seems hushed to me,

As hushed as though

Her heart were a hunter's fire

Smothered in snow.

Sara Teasdale