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?
(by Sara Teasdale)
“She can’t be unhappy,” you said,
“The smiles are like stars in her eyes,
And her laugh 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.
(by Sara Teasdale)
Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.
(by Sara Teasdale)
There never was a mood of mine,
Gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull,
But you could ease me of its fever
And give it back to me more beutiful.
In many another soul I broke the bread,
And drank the wine and played the happy guest,
But I was lonely, I remembered you;
The heart belong to him who knew it best.
(by Sara Teasdale)
You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.
The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.
Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.
But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true –
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.
(by Sara Teasdale)
“Four winds blowing through the sky,
You have seen poor maidens die,
Tell me then what I shall do
That my lover may be true.”
Said the wind from out the south,
“Lay no kiss upon his mouth,”
And the wind from out the west,
“Wound the heart within his breast,”
And the wind from out the east,
“Send him empty from the feast,”
And the wind from out the north,
“In the tempest thrust him forth;
When thou art more cruel than he,
Then will Love be kind to thee.”
(by Sara Teasdale)
People that I meet and pass
In the city’s broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,
Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?
Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places –
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.
– People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?
(by Sara Teasdale)
