The Inn Of Earth by Sara Teasdale
I came to the crowded Inn of Earth, And called for a cup of wine, But the Host went by with averted eye From a thirst as keen as mine. Then I sat down with weariness And asked a bit of bread, But the Host went by with averted eye And never a word he […]
The India Wharf by Sara Teasdale
Here in the velvet stillness The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon, Sleeping in starlight. . . . A year ago we walked in the jangling city Together . . . . forgetful. One by one we crossed the avenues, Rivers of light, roaring in tumult, And came to the narrow, knotted streets. […]
The House Of Dreams by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
The Heart’s House by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
The Giver by Sara Teasdale
You bound strong sandals on my feet, You gave me bread and wine, And sent me under sun and stars, For all the world was mine. Oh, take the sandals off my feet, You know not what you do; For all my world is in your arms, My sun and stars are you. ————— The […]
The Gift by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
The Flight by Sara Teasdale
Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow, Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow, Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain- But what if I heard my first love calling me again? Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds […]
The Faery Forest by Sara Teasdale
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. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — […]
The Dreams Of My Heart by Sara Teasdale
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass, Nothing stays with me long, But I have had from a child The deep solace of song; If that should ever leave me, Let me find death and stay With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten Like the rain of yesterday. ————— The End […]
The Crystal Gazer by Sara Teasdale
I shall gather myself into myself again, I shall take my scattered selves and make them one, Fusing 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 […]
The Coin by Sara Teasdale
INTO my heart’s treasury I slipped a coin That time cannot take Nor a thief purloin,- Oh better than the minting Of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
The Cloud by Sara Teasdale
I am a cloud in the heaven’s height, The stars are lit for my delight, Tireless and changeful, swift and free, I cast my shadow on hill and sea- But why do the pines on the mountain’s crest Call to me always, “Rest, rest”? I throw my mantle over the moon And I blind the […]
The Carpenter’s Son by Sara Teasdale
The summer dawn came over-soon, The earth was like hot iron at noon In Nazareth; There fell no rain to ease the heat, And dusk drew on with tired feet And stifled breath. The shop was low and hot and square, And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air, While all day long The saw went […]
The Broken Field by Sara Teasdale
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. ————— The End And that’s […]
The Blind by Sara Teasdale
The birds are all a-building, They say the world’s a-flower, And still I linger lonely Within a barren bower. I weave a web of fancies Of tears and darkness spun. How shall I sing of sunlight Who never saw the sun? I hear the pipes a-blowing, But yet I may not dance, I know that […]
The Answer by Sara Teasdale
When I go back to earth And all my joyous body Puts off the red and white That once had been so proud, If men should pass above With false and feeble pity, My dust will find a voice To answer them aloud: “Be still, I am content, Take back your poor compassion, Joy was […]
Spring In War Time by Sara Teasdale
I feel the spring far off, far off, The faint, far scent of bud and leaf — Oh, how can spring take heart to come To a world in grief, Deep grief? The sun turns north, the days grow long, Later the evening star grows bright — How can the daylight linger on For men […]
Soul’s Birth by Sara Teasdale
When you were born, beloved, was your soul New made by God to match your body’s flower, And were they both at one same precious hour Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole? Or had your soul since dim creation burned, A star in some still region of the sky, That leaping earthward, left […]
A Song To Eleonora Duse In “Francesca da Rimini ” by Sara Teasdale
Oh would I were the roses, that lie against her hands, The heavy burning roses she touches as she stands! Dear hands that hold the roses, where mine would love to be, Oh leave, oh leave the roses, and hold the hands of me! She draws the heart from out them, she draws away their […]
Song At Capri by Sara Teasdale
When beauty grows too great to bear How shall I ease me of its ache, For beauty more than bitterness Makes the heart break. Now while I watch the dreaming sea With isles like flowers against her breast, Only one voice in all the world Could give me rest. ————— The End And that’s the […]
Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
SINCE there is no escape, since at the end My body will be utterly destroyed, This hand I love as I have loved a friend, This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed; Since there is no escape even for me Who love life with a love too sharp to bear: The scent of orchards […]
The Return by Sara Teasdale
I turned the key and opened wide the door To enter my deserted room again, Where thro’ the long hot months the dust had lain. Was it not lonely when across the floor No step was heard, no sudden song that bore My whole heart upward with a joyous pain? Were not the pictures and […]
Pity by Sara Teasdale
They never saw my lover’s face, They only know our love was brief, Wearing awhile a windy grace And passing like an autumn leaf. They wonder why I do not weep, They think it strange that I can sing, They say, “Her love was scarcely deep Since it has left so slight a sting.” They […]
Pierrot’s Song by Sara Teasdale
Lady, light in the east hangs low, Draw your veils of dream apart, Under the casement stands Pierrot Making a song to ease his heart. (Yet do not break the song too soon- I love to sing in the paling moon.) The petals are falling, heavy with dew, The stars have fainted out of the […]
Paris In Spring by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
Over The Roofs by Sara Teasdale
Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower Ring on, ring on unendingly, Make all the hours a single hour, For when the dusk begins to flower, The man I love will come to me! . . . But no, go slowly as you will, I should not bid you hasten so, For while I […]
Only In Sleep by Sara Teasdale
Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild. Only in sleep Time is forgotten – What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And […]
On The Dunes by Sara Teasdale
IF there is any life when death is over, These tawny beaches will know much of me, I shall come back, as constant and as changeful As the unchanging, many-colored sea. If life was small, if it has made me scornful, Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame In the great calm of death, […]
On The Death Of Swinburne by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
Oh Day Of Fire And Sun by Sara Teasdale
Oh day of fire and sun, Pure as a naked flame, Blue sea, blue sky and dun Sands where he spoke my name; Laughter and hearts so high That the spirit flew off free, Lifting into the sky Diving into the sea; Oh day of fire and sun Like a crystal burning, Slow days go […]
Night Song At Amalfi by Sara Teasdale
I asked the heaven of stars What I should give my love – It answered me with silence, Silence above. I asked the darkened sea Down where the fishers go – It answered me with silence, Silence below. Oh, I could give him weeping, Or I could give him song – But how can I […]
Night In Arizona by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
When the horns wear thin And the noise, like a garment outworn, Falls from the night, The tattered and shivering night, That thinks she is gay; When the patient silence comes back, And retires, And returns, Rebuffed by a ribald song, Wounded by vehement cries, Fleeing again to the stars- Ashamed of her sister the […]
Madeira From The Sea by Sara Teasdale
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 […]
Love In Autumn by Sara Teasdale
I sought among the drifting leaves, The golden leaves that once were green, To see if Love were hiding there And peeping out between. For thro’ the silver showers of May And thro’ the summer’s heavy heat, In vain I sought his golden head And light, fast-flying feet. Perhaps when all the world is bare […]
Less Than The Cloud To The Wind by Sara Teasdale
Less than the cloud to the wind, Less than the foam to the sea, Less than the rose to the storm, Am I to thee. More than the star to the night, More than the rain to the tree, More than heaven to earth Art thou to me. ————— The End And that’s the End […]
Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow by Sara Teasdale
I. Spirit’s House From naked stones of agony I will build a house for me; As a mason all alone I will raise it, stone by stone, And every stone where I have bled Will show a sign of dusky red. I have not gone the way in vain, For I have good of all […]
In The Train by Sara Teasdale
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. ————— The […]
In The Metropolitan Museum by Sara Teasdale
Inside the tiny Pantheon We stood together silently, Leaving the restless crowds awhile, As ships find shelter from the sea. The ancient centuries came back To cover us a moment’s space, And through the dome the light was glad Because it shone upon your face. Ah, not from Rome but farther still Beyond sun-smitten Salamis, […]
In The End by Sara Teasdale
All that could never be said, All that could never be done, Wait for us at last Somewhere back of the sun; All the heart broke to forego Shall be ours without pain, We shall take them as lightly as girls Pluck flowers after rain. And when they are ours in the end Perhaps after […]