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,
Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Page 2