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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale
+#3 in our series by Sara Teasdale
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+Flame and Shadow
+
+by Sara Teasdale
+
+July, 1996 [Etext #591]
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale
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+
+
+Entered twice and compared by A. Light, alight@mercury.interpath.net
+
+Flame and Shadow
+By Sara Teasdale
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Note on text: Italicized stanzas are indented 5 spaces.
+Italicized words or phrases are marked by tildes (~).
+Lines longer than 78 characters are broken according to metre,
+and the continuation is indented two spaces. Also, some obvious errors
+may have been corrected.]
+
+
+
+
+
+Flame and Shadow
+
+By Sara Teasdale
+Author of "Rivers to the Sea", "Love Songs", etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+To E.
+
+"Recois la flamme ou l'ombre
+ De tous mes jours."
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+ I
+
+Blue Squills
+Stars
+"What Do I Care?"
+Meadowlarks
+Driftwood
+"I Have Loved Hours at Sea"
+August Moonrise
+
+
+Memories
+ II
+
+Places
+Old Tunes
+"Only in Sleep"
+Redbirds
+Sunset: St. Louis
+The Coin
+The Voice
+
+
+ III
+
+Day and Night
+Compensation
+I Remembered
+"Oh You Are Coming"
+The Return
+Gray Eyes
+The Net
+The Mystery
+
+
+In a Hospital
+ IV
+
+Open Windows
+The New Moon
+Eight O'Clock
+Lost Things
+Pain
+The Broken Field
+The Unseen
+A Prayer
+
+
+ V
+
+Spring Torrents
+"I Know the Stars"
+Understanding
+Nightfall
+"It Is Not a Word"
+"My Heart Is Heavy"
+The Nights Remember
+"Let It Be Forgotten"
+
+
+The Dark Cup
+ VI
+
+May Day
+"Since There Is No Escape"
+"The Dreams of My Heart"
+"A Little While"
+The Garden
+The Wine
+In a Cuban Garden
+"If I Must Go"
+
+
+ VII
+
+In Spring, Santa Barbara
+White Fog
+Arcturus
+Moonlight
+Morning Song
+Gray Fog
+Bells
+Lovely Chance
+
+
+ VIII
+
+"There Will Come Soft Rains"
+In a Garden
+Nahant
+Winter Stars
+A Boy
+Winter Dusk
+
+
+By the Sea
+ IX
+
+The Unchanging
+June Night
+"Like Barley Bending"
+"Oh Day of Fire and Sun"
+"I Thought of You"
+On the Dunes
+Spray
+If Death Is Kind
+
+
+ X
+
+Thoughts
+Faces
+Evening: New York
+Snowfall
+The Silent Battle
+The Sanctuary
+At Sea
+Dust
+The Long Hill
+
+
+ XI
+
+Summer Storm
+In the End
+"It Will Not Change"
+Change
+Water Lilies
+"Did You Never Know?"
+The Treasure
+The Storm
+
+
+Songs For Myself
+ XII
+
+The Tree
+At Midnight
+Song Making
+Alone
+Red Maples
+Debtor
+The Wind in the Hemlock
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Flame and Shadow
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ I
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Blue Squills
+
+
+
+How many million Aprils came
+ Before I ever knew
+How white a cherry bough could be,
+ A bed of squills, how blue!
+
+And many a dancing April
+ When life is done with me,
+Will lift the blue flame of the flower
+ And the white flame of the tree.
+
+Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
+ Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
+Lest in the end death try to take
+ Even this glistening hour.
+
+O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
+ O sunlit white and blue,
+Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
+ May bear the scar of you.
+
+
+
+
+Stars
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+"What Do I Care?"
+
+
+
+What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
+ That my songs do not show me at all?
+For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
+ I am an answer, they are only a call.
+
+But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
+ Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
+For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
+ It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.
+
+
+
+
+Meadowlarks
+
+
+
+In the silver light after a storm,
+ Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
+I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
+ Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
+
+What have I to fear in life or death
+ Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,
+The white flying joy when a song is born,
+ And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.
+
+
+
+
+Driftwood
+
+
+
+My forefathers gave me
+ My spirit's shaken flame,
+The shape of hands, the beat of heart,
+ The letters of my name.
+
+But it was my lovers,
+ And not my sleeping sires,
+Who gave the flame its changeful
+ And iridescent fires;
+
+As the driftwood burning
+ Learned its jewelled blaze
+From the sea's blue splendor
+ Of colored nights and days.
+
+
+
+
+"I Have Loved Hours at Sea"
+
+
+
+I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
+ The fragile secret of a flower,
+Music, the making of a poem
+ That gave me heaven for an hour;
+
+First stars above a snowy hill,
+ Voices of people kindly and wise,
+And the great look of love, long hidden,
+ Found at last in meeting eyes.
+
+I have loved much and been loved deeply --
+ Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
+Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
+ I shall be tired and glad to go.
+
+
+
+
+August Moonrise
+
+
+
+The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
+Over the blue Connecticut hills;
+The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
+And over my head the swallows rushed
+This way and that, with changeful wills.
+I heard them twitter and watched them dart
+Now together and now apart
+Like dark petals blown from a tree;
+The maples stamped against the west
+Were black and stately and full of rest,
+And the hazy orange moon grew up
+And slowly changed to yellow gold
+While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
+To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.
+Down the hill I went, and then
+I forgot the ways of men,
+For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
+Wakened ecstasy in me
+On the brink of a shining pool.
+
+O Beauty, out of many a cup
+You have made me drunk and wild
+Ever since I was a child,
+But when have I been sure as now
+That no bitterness can bend
+And no sorrow wholly bow
+One who loves you to the end?
+And though I must give my breath
+And my laughter all to death,
+And my eyes through which joy came,
+And my heart, a wavering flame;
+If all must leave me and go back
+Along a blind and fearful track
+So that you can make anew,
+Fusing with intenser fire,
+Something nearer your desire;
+If my soul must go alone
+Through a cold infinity,
+Or even if it vanish, too,
+Beauty, I have worshipped you.
+
+Let this single hour atone
+For the theft of all of me.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Memories
+ II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Places
+
+
+
+Places I love come back to me like music,
+ Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
+I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
+ In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
+And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
+ As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
+
+I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
+ A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
+The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
+ Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
+And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
+ With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
+
+Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
+ The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
+A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
+ In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are;
+The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers
+ And heaven is lighting star after star.
+
+Places I love come back to me like music --
+ Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;
+In the ship's deep churning the eerie phosphorescence
+ Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
+And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,
+ At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.
+
+
+
+
+Old Tunes
+
+
+
+As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,
+Float in the garden when no wind blows,
+Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;
+
+So the old tunes float in my mind,
+And go from me leaving no trace behind,
+Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.
+
+But in the instant the airs remain
+I know the laughter and the pain
+Of times that will not come again.
+
+I try to catch at many a tune
+Like petals of light fallen from the moon,
+Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,
+
+But they float away -- for who can hold
+Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?
+
+
+
+
+"Only in Sleep"
+
+
+
+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 the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
+
+The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
+ I met their eyes and found them mild --
+Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
+ And for them am I too a child?
+
+
+
+
+Redbirds
+
+
+
+Redbirds, redbirds,
+ Long and long ago,
+What a honey-call you had
+ In hills I used to know;
+
+Redbud, buckberry,
+ Wild plum-tree
+And proud river sweeping
+ Southward to the sea,
+
+Brown and gold in the sun
+ Sparkling far below,
+Trailing stately round her bluffs
+ Where the poplars grow --
+
+Redbirds, redbirds,
+ Are you singing still
+As you sang one May day
+ On Saxton's Hill?
+
+
+
+
+Sunset: St. Louis
+
+
+
+Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,
+When I came home again from far-off places,
+How many times I saw my western city
+ Dream by her river.
+
+Then for an hour the water wore a mantle
+Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise
+Under the tall and darkened arches bearing
+ Gray, high-flung bridges.
+
+Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples
+Flickered with fire up the slope to westward,
+And old warehouses poured their purple shadows
+ Across the levee.
+
+High over them the black train swept with thunder,
+Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it
+Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers
+ Resting in twilight.
+
+
+
+
+The Coin
+
+
+
+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 Voice
+
+
+
+Atoms as old as stars,
+Mutation on mutation,
+Millions and millions of cells
+Dividing yet still the same,
+From air and changing earth,
+From ancient Eastern rivers,
+From turquoise tropic seas,
+Unto myself I came.
+
+My spirit like my flesh
+Sprang from a thousand sources,
+From cave-man, hunter and shepherd,
+From Karnak, Cyprus, Rome;
+The living thoughts in me
+Spring from dead men and women,
+Forgotten time out of mind
+And many as bubbles of foam.
+
+Here for a moment's space
+Into the light out of darkness,
+I come and they come with me
+Finding words with my breath;
+From the wisdom of many life-times
+I hear them cry: "Forever
+Seek for Beauty, she only
+Fights with man against Death!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ III
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Day and Night
+
+
+
+In Warsaw in Poland
+ Half the world away,
+The one I love best of all
+ Thought of me to-day;
+
+I know, for I went
+ Winged as a bird,
+In the wide flowing wind
+ His own voice I heard;
+
+His arms were round me
+ In a ferny place,
+I looked in the pool
+ And there was his face --
+
+But now it is night
+ And the cold stars say:
+"Warsaw in Poland
+ Is half the world away."
+
+
+
+
+Compensation
+
+
+
+I should be glad of loneliness
+ And hours that go on broken wings,
+A thirsty body, a tired heart
+ And the unchanging ache of things,
+If I could make a single song
+ As lovely and as full of light,
+As hushed and brief as a falling star
+ On a winter night.
+
+
+
+
+I Remembered
+
+
+
+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 beautiful.
+
+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 belongs to him who knew it best.
+
+
+
+
+"Oh You Are Coming"
+
+
+
+Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
+ How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? --
+But why does it anger my heart to long so
+ For one man out of the world of men?
+
+Oh I would live in myself only
+ And build my life lightly and still as a dream --
+Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts
+ And colored like stones in a running stream?
+
+Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,
+ The stars are ready, the night is here --
+Oh why must I lose myself to love you,
+ My dear?
+
+
+
+
+The Return
+
+
+
+He has come, he is here,
+My love has come home,
+The minutes are lighter
+Than flying foam,
+The hours are like dancers
+On gold-slippered feet,
+The days are young runners
+Naked and fleet --
+For my love has returned,
+He is home, he is here,
+In the whole world no other
+Is dear as my dear!
+
+
+
+
+Gray Eyes
+
+
+
+It was April when you came
+ The first time to me,
+And my first look in your eyes
+ Was like my first look at the sea.
+
+We have been together
+ Four Aprils now
+Watching for the green
+ On the swaying willow bough;
+
+Yet whenever I turn
+ To your gray eyes over me,
+It is as though I looked
+ For the first time at the sea.
+
+
+
+
+The Net
+
+
+
+I made you many and many a song,
+ Yet never one told all you are --
+It was as though a net of words
+ Were flung to catch a star;
+
+It was as though I curved my hand
+ And dipped sea-water eagerly,
+Only to find it lost the blue
+ Dark splendor of the sea.
+
+
+
+
+The Mystery
+
+
+
+Your eyes drink of me,
+ Love makes them shine,
+Your eyes that lean
+ So close to mine.
+
+We have long been lovers,
+ We know the range
+Of each other's moods
+ And how they change;
+
+But when we look
+ At each other so
+Then we feel
+ How little we know;
+
+The spirit eludes us,
+ Timid and free --
+Can I ever know you
+ Or you know me?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+In a Hospital
+ IV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Open Windows
+
+
+
+Out of the window a sea of green trees
+ Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer,
+They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!"
+ But I cannot answer.
+
+I am alone with Weakness and Pain,
+ Sick abed and June is going,
+I cannot keep her, she hurries by
+ With the silver-green of her garments blowing.
+
+Men and women pass in the street
+ Glad of the shining sapphire weather,
+But we know more of it than they,
+ Pain and I together.
+
+They are the runners in the sun,
+ Breathless and blinded by the race,
+But we are watchers in the shade
+ Who speak with Wonder face to face.
+
+
+
+
+The New Moon
+
+
+
+Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
+As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
+Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
+Left me nothing lovely or whole --
+Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
+Day that dies in dusky blue:
+
+For suddenly over the factories
+I saw a moon in the cloudy seas --
+A wisp of beauty all alone
+In a world as hard and gray as stone --
+Oh who could be bitter and want to die
+When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
+
+
+
+
+Eight O'Clock
+
+
+
+Supper comes at five o'clock,
+ At six, the evening star,
+My lover comes at eight o'clock --
+ But eight o'clock is far.
+
+How could I bear my pain all day
+ Unless I watched to see
+The clock-hands laboring to bring
+ Eight o'clock to me.
+
+
+
+
+Lost Things
+
+
+
+Oh, I could let the world go by,
+ Its loud new wonders and its wars,
+But how will I give up the sky
+ When winter dusk is set with stars?
+
+And I could let the cities go,
+ Their changing customs and their creeds, --
+But oh, the summer rains that blow
+ In silver on the jewel-weeds!
+
+
+
+
+Pain
+
+
+
+Waves are the sea's white daughters,
+ And raindrops the children of rain,
+But why for my shimmering body
+ Have I a mother like Pain?
+
+Night is the mother of stars,
+ And wind the mother of foam --
+The world is brimming with beauty,
+ But I must stay at home.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+The Unseen
+
+
+
+Death went up the hall
+ Unseen by every one,
+Trailing twilight robes
+ Past the nurse and the nun.
+
+He paused at every door
+ And listened to the breath
+Of those who did not know
+ How near they were to Death.
+
+Death went up the hall
+ Unseen by nurse and nun;
+He passed by many a door --
+ But he entered one.
+
+
+
+
+A Prayer
+
+
+
+When I am dying, let me know
+That I loved the blowing snow
+ Although it stung like whips;
+That I loved all lovely things
+And I tried to take their stings
+ With gay unembittered lips;
+That I loved with all my strength,
+To my soul's full depth and length,
+ Careless if my heart must break,
+That I sang as children sing
+Fitting tunes to everything,
+ Loving life for its own sake.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Spring Torrents
+
+
+
+Will it always be like this until I am dead,
+ Every spring must I bear it all again
+With the first red haze of the budding maple boughs,
+ And the first sweet-smelling rain?
+
+Oh I am like a rock in the rising river
+ Where the flooded water breaks with a low call --
+Like a rock that knows the cry of the waters
+ And cannot answer at all.
+
+
+
+
+"I Know the Stars"
+
+
+
+I know the stars by their names,
+ Aldebaran, Altair,
+And I know the path they take
+ Up heaven's broad blue stair.
+
+I know the secrets of men
+ By the look of their eyes,
+Their gray thoughts, their strange thoughts
+ Have made me sad and wise.
+
+But your eyes are dark to me
+ Though they seem to call and call --
+I cannot tell if you love me
+ Or do not love me at all.
+
+I know many things,
+ But the years come and go,
+I shall die not knowing
+ The thing I long to know.
+
+
+
+
+Understanding
+
+
+
+I understood the rest too well,
+ And all their thoughts have come to be
+Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell
+ Of a sunny shallow sea.
+
+But you I never understood,
+ Your spirit's secret hides like gold
+Sunk in a Spanish galleon
+ Ages ago in waters cold.
+
+
+
+
+Nightfall
+
+
+
+We will never walk again
+ As we used to walk at night,
+Watching our shadows lengthen
+ Under the gold street-light
+ When the snow was new and white.
+
+We will never walk again
+ Slowly, we two,
+In spring when the park is sweet
+ With midnight and with dew,
+ And the passers-by are few.
+
+I sit and think of it all,
+ And the blue June twilight dies, --
+Down in the clanging square
+ A street-piano cries
+ And stars come out in the skies.
+
+
+
+
+"It Is Not a Word"
+
+
+
+It is not a word spoken,
+ Few words are said;
+Nor even a look of the eyes
+ Nor a bend of the head,
+But only a hush of the heart
+ That has too much to keep,
+Only memories waking
+ That sleep so light a sleep.
+
+
+
+
+"My Heart Is Heavy"
+
+
+
+My heart is heavy with many a song
+ Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
+But I can never give you one --
+ My songs do not belong to me.
+
+Yet in the evening, in the dusk
+ When moths go to and fro,
+In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
+ Take it, no one will know.
+
+
+
+
+The Nights Remember
+
+
+
+The days remember and the nights remember
+ The kingly hours that once you made so great,
+Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,
+ Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.
+
+Let them not wake again, better to lie there,
+ Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed --
+Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep
+ And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
+
+
+
+
+"Let It Be Forgotten"
+
+
+
+Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
+ Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
+Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
+ Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
+
+If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
+ Long and long ago,
+As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
+ In a long forgotten snow.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Dark Cup
+ VI
+
+
+
+
+
+
+May Day
+
+
+
+A delicate fabric of bird song
+ Floats in the air,
+The smell of wet wild earth
+ Is everywhere.
+
+Red small leaves of the maple
+ Are clenched like a hand,
+Like girls at their first communion
+ The pear trees stand.
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+"Since There Is No Escape"
+
+
+
+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 in the rain, the sea
+ And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --
+Since darkness waits for me, then all the more
+Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore
+ In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;
+In these few hours of light I lift my head;
+Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead
+ If there is any way to baffle death.
+
+
+
+
+"The Dreams of My Heart"
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+"A Little While"
+
+
+
+A little while when I am gone
+ My life will live in music after me,
+As spun foam lifted and borne on
+ After the wave is lost in the full sea.
+
+A while these nights and days will burn
+ In song with the bright frailty of foam,
+Living in light before they turn
+ Back to the nothingness that is their home.
+
+
+
+
+The Garden
+
+
+
+My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
+ Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
+In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
+ The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
+
+Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
+ And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain --
+The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten --
+ After the stillness, will spring come again?
+
+
+
+
+The Wine
+
+
+
+I cannot die, who drank delight
+ From the cup of the crescent moon,
+And hungrily as men eat bread,
+ Loved the scented nights of June.
+
+The rest may die -- but is there not
+ Some shining strange escape for me
+Who sought in Beauty the bright wine
+ Of immortality?
+
+
+
+
+In a Cuban Garden
+
+
+
+Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire,
+ (Love me, my lover, life will not stay)
+The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind,
+ A scarlet leaf is blowing away.
+
+A lizard lifts his head and listens --
+ Kiss me before the noon goes by,
+Here in the shade of the ceiba hide me
+ From the great black vulture circling the sky.
+
+
+
+
+"If I Must Go"
+
+
+
+If I must go to heaven's end
+ Climbing the ages like a stair,
+Be near me and forever bend
+ With the same eyes above me there;
+Time will fly past us like leaves flying,
+ We shall not heed, for we shall be
+Beyond living, beyond dying,
+ Knowing and known unchangeably.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ VII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+In Spring, Santa Barbara
+
+
+
+I have been happy two weeks together,
+ My love is coming home to me,
+Gold and silver is the weather
+ And smooth as lapis is the sea.
+
+The earth has turned its brown to green
+ After three nights of humming rain,
+And in the valleys peck and preen
+ Linnets with a scarlet stain.
+
+High in the mountains all alone
+ The wild swans whistle on the lakes,
+But I have been as still as stone,
+ My heart sings only when it breaks.
+
+
+
+
+White Fog
+
+
+
+Heaven-invading hills are drowned
+ In wide moving waves of mist,
+Phlox before my door are wound
+ In dripping wreaths of amethyst.
+
+Ten feet away the solid earth
+ Changes into melting cloud,
+There is a hush of pain and mirth,
+ No bird has heart to speak aloud.
+
+Here in a world without a sky,
+ Without the ground, without the sea,
+The one unchanging thing is I,
+ Myself remains to comfort me.
+
+
+
+
+Arcturus
+
+
+
+Arcturus brings the spring back
+ As surely now as when
+He rose on eastern islands
+ For Grecian girls and men;
+
+The twilight is as clear a blue,
+ The star as shaken and as bright,
+And the same thought he gave to them
+ He gives to me to-night.
+
+
+
+
+Moonlight
+
+
+
+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.
+
+The heart asks more than life can give,
+ When that is learned, then all is learned;
+ The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
+But beauty itself is fugitive,
+ It will not hurt me when I am old.
+
+
+
+
+Morning Song
+
+
+
+A diamond of a morning
+ Waked me an hour too soon;
+Dawn had taken in the stars
+ And left the faint white moon.
+
+O white moon, you are lonely,
+ It is the same with me,
+But we have the world to roam over,
+ Only the lonely are free.
+
+
+
+
+Gray Fog
+
+
+
+A fog drifts in, the heavy laden
+ Cold white ghost of the sea --
+One by one the hills go out,
+ The road and the pepper-tree.
+
+I watch the fog float in at the window
+ With the whole world gone blind,
+Everything, even my longing, drowses,
+ Even the thoughts in my mind.
+
+I put my head on my hands before me,
+ There is nothing left to be done or said,
+There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
+ And heavy as the dead.
+
+
+
+
+Bells
+
+
+
+At six o'clock of an autumn dusk
+ With the sky in the west a rusty red,
+The bells of the mission down in the valley
+ Cry out that the day is dead.
+
+The first star pricks as sharp as steel --
+ Why am I suddenly so cold?
+Three bells, each with a separate sound
+ Clang in the valley, wearily tolled.
+
+Bells in Venice, bells at sea,
+ Bells in the valley heavy and slow --
+There is no place over the crowded world
+ Where I can forget that the days go.
+
+
+
+
+Lovely Chance
+
+
+
+O lovely chance, what can I do
+To give my gratefulness to you?
+You rise between myself and me
+With a wise persistency;
+I would have broken body and soul,
+But by your grace, still I am whole.
+Many a thing you did to save me,
+Many a holy gift you gave me,
+Music and friends and happy love
+More than my dearest dreaming of;
+And now in this wide twilight hour
+With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
+In a humble mood I bless
+Your wisdom -- and your waywardness.
+You brought me even here, where I
+Live on a hill against the sky
+And look on mountains and the sea
+And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ VIII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"There Will Come Soft Rains"
+
+(War Time)
+
+
+
+There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
+And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
+
+And frogs in the pools singing at night,
+And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
+
+Robins will wear their feathery fire
+Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
+
+And not one will know of the war, not one
+Will care at last when it is done.
+
+Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
+If mankind perished utterly;
+
+And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
+Would scarcely know that we were gone.
+
+
+
+
+In a Garden
+
+
+
+The world is resting without sound or motion,
+ Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
+Painting with fire the spires and the windows
+ In the elm-shaded town.
+
+Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
+ Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
+The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
+ On an aerial loom.
+
+Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
+ Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
+The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
+ And swaying hollyhocks.
+
+For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
+ The far-off murmur as when many come;
+Up from the village surged the blind and beating
+ Red music of a drum;
+
+And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
+ The brittle autumn air,
+While they came, the young men marching
+ Past the village square. . . .
+
+Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
+ To violet, the veils of dusk are deep --
+Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly
+ And stills herself to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+Nahant
+
+
+
+Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty,
+So earth is bowed, under her weight of splendor,
+Molten sea, richness of leaves and the burnished
+ Bronze of sea-grasses.
+
+Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peas
+And chicory flowers bluer than the ocean
+Flinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine,
+ Jewels of water.
+
+Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges,
+Make me forget war and the dark war-sorrow --
+Against the sky a sentry paces the sea-cliff
+ Slim in his khaki.
+
+
+
+
+Winter Stars
+
+
+
+I went out at night alone;
+ The young blood flowing beyond the sea
+Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings --
+ I bore my sorrow heavily.
+
+But when I lifted up my head
+ From shadows shaken on the snow,
+I saw Orion in the east
+ Burn steadily as long ago.
+
+From windows in my father's house,
+ Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
+I watched Orion as a girl
+ Above another city's lights.
+
+Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
+ The world's heart breaks beneath its wars,
+All things are changed, save in the east
+ The faithful beauty of the stars.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+Winter Dusk
+
+
+
+I watch the great clear twilight
+ Veiling the ice-bowed trees;
+Their branches tinkle faintly
+ With crystal melodies.
+
+The larches bend their silver
+ Over the hush of snow;
+One star is lighted in the west,
+ Two in the zenith glow.
+
+For a moment I have forgotten
+ Wars and women who mourn --
+I think of the mother who bore me
+ And thank her that I was born.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+By the Sea
+ IX
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Unchanging
+
+
+
+Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
+ From the immense blue circle of the sea,
+And the soft thunder where long waves whiten --
+ These were the same for Sappho as for me.
+
+Two thousand years -- much has gone by forever,
+ Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men --
+But here on the beaches that time passes over
+ The heart aches now as then.
+
+
+
+
+June Night
+
+
+
+Oh Earth, you are too dear to-night,
+ How can I sleep while all around
+Floats rainy fragrance and the far
+ Deep voice of the ocean that talks to the ground?
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+"Like Barley Bending"
+
+
+
+Like barley bending
+ In low fields by the sea,
+Singing in hard wind
+ Ceaselessly;
+
+Like barley bending
+ And rising again,
+So would I, unbroken,
+ Rise from pain;
+
+So would I softly,
+ Day long, night long,
+Change my sorrow
+ Into song.
+
+
+
+
+"Oh Day of Fire and Sun"
+
+
+
+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 one by one,
+ But you have no returning.
+
+
+
+
+"I Thought of You"
+
+
+
+I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
+ And walking up the long beach all alone
+I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
+ As you and I once heard their monotone.
+
+Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
+ The cold and sparkling silver of the sea --
+We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
+ Before you hear that sound again with me.
+
+
+
+
+On the Dunes
+
+
+
+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, and if you want me
+ Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.
+
+
+
+
+Spray
+
+
+
+I knew you thought of me all night,
+ I knew, though you were far away;
+ I felt your love blow over me
+ As if a dark wind-riven sea
+ Drenched me with quivering spray.
+
+There are so many ways to love
+ And each way has its own delight --
+ Then be content to come to me
+ Only as spray the beating sea
+ Drives inland through the night.
+
+
+
+
+If Death Is Kind
+
+
+
+Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
+ We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
+And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
+ Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.
+
+We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
+ And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
+Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
+ We shall be happy, for the dead are free.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ X
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Thoughts
+
+
+
+When I am all alone
+ Envy me most,
+Then my thoughts flutter round me
+ In a glimmering host;
+
+Some dressed in silver,
+ Some dressed in white,
+Each like a taper
+ Blossoming light;
+
+Most of them merry,
+ Some of them grave,
+Each of them lithe
+ As willows that wave;
+
+Some bearing violets,
+ Some bearing bay,
+One with a burning rose
+ Hidden away --
+
+When I am all alone
+ Envy me then,
+For I have better friends
+ Than women and men.
+
+
+
+
+Faces
+
+
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+Evening: New York
+
+
+
+Blue dust of evening over my city,
+ Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers
+Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads,
+ Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
+
+
+
+
+Snowfall
+
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+The Silent Battle
+
+(In Memory of J. W. T. Jr.)
+
+
+
+He was a soldier in that fight
+ Where there is neither flag nor drum,
+And without sound of musketry
+ The stealthy foemen come.
+
+Year in, year out, by day and night
+ They forced him to a slow retreat,
+And for his gallant fight alone
+ No fife was blown, and no drum beat.
+
+In winter fog, in gathering mist
+ The gray grim battle had its end --
+And at the very last we knew
+ His enemy had turned his friend.
+
+
+
+
+The Sanctuary
+
+
+
+If I could keep my innermost Me
+Fearless, aloof and free
+Of the least breath of love or hate,
+And not disconsolate
+At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
+If I could keep a sanctuary there
+Free even of prayer,
+If I could do this, then,
+With quiet candor as I grew more wise
+I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.
+
+
+
+
+At Sea
+
+
+
+In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
+ On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
+Wild night around me, wild water under me,
+ Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.
+
+Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
+ Why do I look for a place to rest?
+I must fight always and die fighting
+ With fear an unhealing wound in my breast.
+
+
+
+
+Dust
+
+
+
+When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
+ A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
+I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire --
+ But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.
+
+I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
+ That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes --
+It is strange how often a heart must be broken
+ Before the years can make it wise.
+
+
+
+
+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 catching 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ XI
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Summer Storm
+
+
+
+The panther wind
+ Leaps out of the night,
+The snake of lightning
+ Is twisting and white,
+The lion of thunder
+ Roars -- and we
+Sit still and content
+ Under a tree --
+We have met fate together
+ And love and pain,
+Why should we fear
+ The wrath of the rain!
+
+
+
+
+In the End
+
+
+
+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 all
+The skies will not open for us
+ Nor heaven be there at our call.
+
+
+
+
+"It Will Not Change"
+
+
+
+It will not change now
+ After so many years;
+Life has not broken it
+ With parting or tears;
+Death will not alter it,
+ It will live on
+In all my songs for you
+ When I am gone.
+
+
+
+
+Change
+
+
+
+Remember me as I was then;
+ Turn from me now, but always see
+The laughing shadowy girl who stood
+ At midnight by the flowering tree,
+With eyes that love had made as bright
+As the trembling stars of the summer night.
+
+Turn from me now, but always hear
+ The muted laughter in the dew
+Of that one year of youth we had,
+ The only youth we ever knew --
+Turn from me now, or you will see
+What other years have done to me.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+"Did You Never Know?"
+
+
+
+Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me --
+ That your love would never lessen and never go?
+You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
+ You were too young to know.
+
+Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
+ Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year --
+Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
+ I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
+
+
+
+
+The Treasure
+
+
+
+When they see my songs
+ They will sigh and say,
+"Poor soul, wistful soul,
+ Lonely night and day."
+
+They will never know
+ All your love for me
+Surer than the spring,
+ Stronger than the sea;
+
+Hidden out of sight
+ Like a miser's gold
+In forsaken fields
+ Where the wind is cold.
+
+
+
+
+The Storm
+
+
+
+I thought of you when I was wakened
+ By a wind that made me glad and afraid
+Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
+ That the great trees made.
+
+One thought in my mind went over and over
+ While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned --
+I thought it was you who had come to find me,
+ You were the wind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Songs For Myself
+ XII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Tree
+
+
+
+Oh to be free of myself,
+ With nothing left to remember,
+To have my heart as bare
+ As a tree in December;
+
+Resting, as a tree rests
+ After its leaves are gone,
+Waiting no more for a rain at night
+ Nor for the red at dawn;
+
+But still, oh so still
+ While the winds come and go,
+With no more fear of the hard frost
+ Or the bright burden of snow;
+
+And heedless, heedless
+ If anyone pass and see
+On the white page of the sky
+ Its thin black tracery.
+
+
+
+
+At Midnight
+
+
+
+Now at last I have come to see what life is,
+ Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
+And the brave victories that seem so splendid
+ Are never really won.
+
+Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
+ Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
+And music and men's praise and even laughter
+ Are not so good as rest.
+
+
+
+
+Song Making
+
+
+
+My heart cried like a beaten child
+ Ceaselessly all night long;
+I had to take my own cries
+ And thread them into a song.
+
+One was a cry at black midnight
+ And one when the first cock crew --
+My heart was like a beaten child,
+ But no one ever knew.
+
+Life, you have put me in your debt
+ And I must serve you long --
+But oh, the debt is terrible
+ That must be paid in song.
+
+
+
+
+Alone
+
+
+
+I am alone, in spite of love,
+ In spite of all I take and give --
+In spite of all your tenderness,
+ Sometimes I am not glad to live.
+
+I am alone, as though I stood
+ On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
+About me only swirling snow,
+ Above me, endless space unfurled;
+
+With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
+ And only my own spirit's pride
+To keep me from the peace of those
+ Who are not lonely, having died.
+
+
+
+
+Red Maples
+
+
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+Debtor
+
+
+
+So long as my spirit still
+ Is glad of breath
+And lifts its plumes of pride
+ In the dark face of death;
+While I am curious still
+ Of love and fame,
+Keeping my heart too high
+ For the years to tame,
+How can I quarrel with fate
+ Since I can see
+I am a debtor to life,
+ Not life to me?
+
+
+
+
+The Wind in the Hemlock
+
+
+
+Steely stars and moon of brass,
+How mockingly you watch me pass!
+You know as well as I how soon
+I shall be blind to stars and moon,
+Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
+Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.
+
+With envious dark rage I bear,
+Stars, your cold complacent stare;
+Heart-broken in my hate look up,
+Moon, at your clear immortal cup,
+Changing to gold from dusky red --
+Age after age when I am dead
+To be filled up with light, and then
+Emptied, to be refilled again.
+
+What has man done that only he
+Is slave to death -- so brutally
+Beaten back into the earth
+Impatient for him since his birth?
+
+Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
+The sight of stars and earth and be
+Sheltered a minute by this tree.
+Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs
+There moves no anger and no doubt,
+No envy of immortal things.
+The night-wind murmurs of the sea
+With veiled music ceaselessly,
+That to my shaken spirit sings.
+From their frail nest the robins rouse,
+In your pungent darkness stirred,
+Twittering a low drowsy word --
+And me you shelter, even me.
+In your quietness you house
+The wind, the woman and the bird.
+You speak to me and I have heard:
+
+ If I am peaceful, I shall see
+ Beauty's face continually;
+ Feeding on her wine and bread
+ I shall be wholly comforted,
+ For she can make one day for me
+ Rich as my lost eternity.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[End of original text.]
+
+
+
+
+Biographical Note:
+
+
+Sara Teasdale (1884-1933):
+
+Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended a school
+that was founded by the grandfather of another great poet from St. Louis --
+T. S. Eliot. She later associated herself more with New York City.
+Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907),
+but "Helen of Troy" (1911) was the true launch of her career,
+followed by "Rivers to the Sea" (1915), "Love Songs" (1917),
+"Flame and Shadow" (1920) and more. Her final volume, "Strange Victory",
+is considered by many to be predictive of her suicide in 1933.
+
+----
+
+From an anthology of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1913, 1917):
+
+"Teasdale, Sara (Mrs. Ernst B. Filsinger). Born in St. Louis, Missouri,
+August 10, 1884. Educated at private schools. She is the author
+of "Sonnets to Duse", 1907; "Helen of Troy, and Other Poems", 1911;
+"Rivers to the Sea", 1915; "Love Songs", 1917. Editor of
+"The Answering Voice: A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women", 1917.
+Miss Teasdale is a lyric poet of an unusually pure and spontaneous gift."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale
+