Sara Teasdale Quotes

Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me wise — Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given birth?

It will not hurt me when I am old, A running tide where moonlight burned Will not sting me like silver snakes; The years will make me sad and cold, It is the happy heart that breaks.

"I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!

We weep before the Blessed Mother's shrine, To think upon her sorrows, but her joys What nun could ever know a tithing of? The precious hours she watched above His sleep Were worth the fearful anguish of the end. Yea, lack of love is bitterest of all.

Oh Earth, you gave me all I have, I love you, I love you, — oh what have I That I can give you in return — Except my body after I die?

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

A Boy

Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.

Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes — Men die by millions now, because God blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.

For tho' I know he loves me, To-night my heart is sad; His kiss was not so wonderful As all the dreams I had.

"...And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.
-"Those Who Love

If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go — Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.

Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.

And still another shining place
We would remember — how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.

But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.

The greenish sky glows up in misty reds, The purple shadows turn to brick and stone, The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Let this single hour atone
For the theft of all of me

My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;<p>And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.