TEASDALE, Sara

The ghost

I went back to the clanging city,

I went back where my old loves stayed,

But my heart was full of my new love's glory,

My eyes were laughing and unafraid.

I met one who had loved me madly

And told his love for all to hear --

But we talked of a thousand things together,

The past was buried too deep to fear.

I met the other, whose love was given

With never a kiss and scarcely a word --

Oh, it was then the terror took me

Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.

Oh, love that lives its life with laughter

Or love that lives its life with tears

Can die -- but love that is never spoken

Goes like a ghost through the winding years. . . .

I went back to the clanging city,

I went back where my old loves stayed,

My heart was full of my new love's glory, --

But my eyes were suddenly afraid.

I Am Not Yours

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.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind,

Swept by the tempest of your love,

A taper in a rushing wind.


There will come soft rains

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.


After Love

There is no magic any more,

We meet as other people do,

You work no miracle for me

Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea --

There is no splendor any more,

I have grown listless as the pool

Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm

And from the tide has found surcease,

It grows more bitter than the sea,

For all its peace.


April

The roofs are shining from the rain.

The sparrows tritter as they fly,

And with a windy April grace

The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown

With only one unchanging tree--

I could not be so sure of Spring

Save that it sings in me.


Spring Night

The park is filled with night and fog,

The veils are drawn about the world,

The drowsy lights along the paths

Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,

Gold and gleaming the misty lake,

The mirrored lights like sunken swords,

Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be

Here with this beauty over me?

My throat should ache with praise, and I

Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,

With youth, a singing voice, and eyes

To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,

Why am I unsatisfied,—

I, for whom the pensive night

Binds her cloudy hair with light,—

I, for whom all beauty burns

Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love?


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.


Come

Come, when the pale moon like a petal

Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,

Come with arms outstretched to take me,

Come with lips pursed up to cling.

Come, for life is a frail moth flying

Caught in the web of the years that pass,

And soon we two, so warm and eager

Will be as the gray stones in the grass.

Dew

As dew leaves the cobweb lightly

Threaded with stars,

Scattering jewels on the fence

And the pasture bars;

As dawn leaves the dry grass bright

And the tangled weeds

Bearing a rainbow gem

On each of their seeds;

So has your love, my lover,

Fresh as the dawn,

Made me a shining road

To travel on,

Set every common sight

Of tree or stone

Delicately alight

For me alone.