They say that love is
something
kind,
That I can never see or touch.
That I can never see or touch.
Sara Teasdale - Helen of Troy
"
The Wanderer
I saw the sunset-colored sands,
The Nile like flowing fire between,
Where Rameses stares forth serene,
And Ammon's heavy temple stands.
I saw the rocks where long ago,
Above the sea that cries and breaks,
Bright Perseus with Medusa's snakes
Set free the maiden white like snow.
And many skies have covered me,
And many winds have blown me forth,
And I have loved the green bright north,
And I have loved the cold sweet sea.
But what to me are north and south,
And what the lure of many lands,
Since you have leaned to catch my hands
And lay a kiss upon my mouth.
I Would Live in Your Love
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul
as it leads.
May
The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.
Rispetto
Was that his step that sounded on the stair?
Was that his knock I heard upon the door?
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,
And yet I would that he might come once more.
It was the wind I heard, that mocks at me,
The bitter wind that is more cruel than he;
It was the wind that knocked upon the door,
But he will never knock nor enter more.
Less than the Cloud to the Wind
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 lea,
More than heaven to earth
Art thou to me.
Buried Love
I shall bury my weary Love
Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
Where none can see.
I shall put no flowers at his head,
Nor stone at his feet,
For the mouth I loved so much
Was bittersweet.
I shall go no more to his grave,
For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
As my hands can hold.
I shall stay all day in the sun
Where the wide winds blow,
But oh, I shall weep at night
When none will know.
Song
O woe is me, my heart is sad,
For I should never know
If Love came by like any lad,
Without his silver bow.
Or if he left his arrows sharp
And came a minstrel weary,
I'd never tell him by his harp
Nor know him for my dearie.
"O go your ways and have no fear,
For tho' Love passes by,
He'll come a hundred times, my dear,
Before your turn to die. "
Pierrot
Pierrot stands in the garden
Beneath a waning moon,
And on his lute he fashions
A little silver tune.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
He thinks he plays for me,
But I am quite forgotten
Under the cherry tree.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
And all the roses know
That Pierrot loves his music,
But I love Pierrot.
At Night
Love said, "Wake still and think of me,"
Sleep, "Close your eyes till break of day,"
But Dreams came by and smilingly
Gave both to Love and Sleep their way.
Song
When Love comes singing to his heart
That would not wake for me,
I think that I shall know his joy
By my own ecstasy.
And tho' the sea were all between,
The time their hands shall meet,
My heart will know his happiness,
So wildly it will beat.
And when he bends above her mouth,
Rejoicing for his sake,
My soul will sing a little song,
But oh, my heart will break.
Love in Autumn
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
And cruel winter holds the land,
The Love that finds no place to hide
Will run and catch my hand.
I shall not care to have him then,
I shall be bitter and a-cold--
It grows too late for frolicking
When all the world is old.
Then little hiding Love, come forth,
Come forth before the autumn goes,
And let us seek thro' ruined paths
The garden's last red rose.
The Kiss
I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.
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.
November
The world is tired, the year is old,
The little leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Among the rushes dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our poor love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
A Song of the Princess
The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.
But Love that is so bitter
Hath put within her heart
A longing for the scornful knight
Who silent stands apart.
And tho' the others praise and plead,
She maketh no reply,
Yet for a single word from him,
I ween that she would die.
The Wind
A wind is blowing over my soul,
I hear it cry the whole night thro'--
Is there no peace for me on earth
Except with you?
Alas, the wind has made me wise,
Over my naked soul it blew,--
There is no peace for me on earth
Even with you.
A Winter Night
My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro.
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
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.
The Metropolitan Tower
We walked together in the dusk
To watch the tower grow dimly white,
And saw it lift against the sky
Its flower of amber light.
You talked of half a hundred things,
I kept each little word you said;
And when at last the hour was full,
I saw the light turn red.
You did not know the time had come,
You did not see the sudden flower,
Nor know that in my heart Love's birth
Was reckoned from that hour.
Gramercy Park
For W. P.
The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
Lest if we entered, peace would go.
We circled it a dozen times,
The wind was blowing from the sea,
I only felt your restless eyes
Whose love was like a cloak for me.
Oh heavy gates that fate has locked
To bar the joy we may not win,
Peace would go out forevermore
If we should dare to enter in.
In the Metropolitan Museum
Within the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently,
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.
The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment's space,
And thro' the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.
Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you stooped
To find the present with a kiss.
Coney Island
Why did you bring me here?
The sand is white with snow,
Over the wooden domes
The winter sea-winds blow--
There is no shelter near,
Come, let us go.
With foam of icy lace
The sea creeps up the sand,
The wind is like a hand
That strikes us in the face.
Doors that June set a-swing
Are bolted long ago;
We try them uselessly--
Alas, there cannot be
For us a second spring;
Come, let us go.
Union Square
With the man I love who loves me not,
I walked in the street-lamps' flare;
We watched the world go home that night
In a flood through Union Square.
I leaned to catch the words he said
That were light as a snowflake falling;
Ah well that he never leaned to hear
The words my heart was calling.
And on we walked and on we walked
Past the fiery lights of the picture shows--
Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by
On the errand each man knows.
And on we walked and on we walked,
At the door at last we said good-bye;
I knew by his smile he had not heard
My heart's unuttered cry.
With the man I love who loves me not
I walked in the street-lamps' flare--
But oh, the girls who can ask for love
In the lights of Union Square.
Central Park at Dusk
Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.
There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything--
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.
Young Love
I
I cannot heed the words they say,
The lights grow far away and dim,
Amid the laughing men and maids
My eyes unbidden seek for him.
I hope that when he smiles at me
He does not guess my joy and pain,
For if he did, he is too kind
To ever look my way again.
II
I have a secret in my heart
No ears have ever heard,
And still it sings there day by day
Most like a caged bird.
And when it beats against the bars,
I do not set it free,
For I am happier to know
It only sings for me.
III
I wrote his name along the beach,
I love the letters so.
Far up it seemed and out of reach,
For still the tide was low.
But oh, the sea came creeping up,
And washed the name away,
And on the sand where it had been
A bit of sea-grass lay.
A bit of sea-grass on the sand,
Dropped from a mermaid's hair--
Ah, had she come to kiss his name
And leave a token there?
IV
What am I that he should love me,
He who stands so far above me,
What am I?
I am like a cowslip turning
Toward the sky,
Where a planet's golden burning
Breaks the cowslip's heart with yearning,
What am I that he should love me,
What am I?
V
O dreams that flock about my sleep,
I pray you bring my love to me,
And let me think I hear his voice
Again ring free.
And if you care to please me well,
And live to-morrow in my mind,
Let him who was so cold before,
To-night seem kind.
VI
I plucked a daisy in the fields,
And there beneath the sun
I let its silver petals fall
One after one.
I said, "He loves me, loves me not,"
And oh, my heart beat fast,
The flower was kind, it let me say
"He loves me," last.
I kissed the little leafless stem,
But oh, my poor heart knew
The words the flower had said to me,
They were not true.
VII
I sent my love a letter,
And if he loves me not,
He shall not find my love for him
In any line or dot.
But if he loves me truly,
He'll find it hidden deep,
As dawn gleams red thro' chilly clouds
To eyes awaked from sleep.
VIII
The world is cold and gray and wet,
And I am heavy-hearted, yet
When I am home and look to see
The place my letters wait for me,
If I should find ONE letter there,
I think I should not greatly care
If it were rainy or were fair,
For all the world would suddenly
Seem like a festival to me.
IX
I hid three words within my heart,
That longed to fly to him,
At dawn they woke me with a start,
They sang till day was dim.
And now at last I let them fly,
As little birds should do,
And he will know the first is "I",
The others "Love" and "You".
X
Across the twilight's violet
His curtained window glimmers gold;
Oh happy light that round my love
Can fold.
Oh happy book within his hand,
Oh happy page he glorifies,
Oh happy little word beneath
His eyes.
But oh, thrice happy, happy I
Who love him more than songs can tell,
For in the heaven of his heart
I dwell.
Sonnets and Lyrics
Primavera Mia
As kings who see their little life-day pass,
Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,
So had the trees that autumn-time laid down
Their golden garments on the faded grass,
When I, who watched the seasons in the glass
Of mine own thoughts, saw all the autumn's brown
Leap into life and don a sunny gown
Of leafage such as happy April has.
Great spring came singing upward from the south;
For in my heart, far carried on the wind,
Your words like winged seeds took root and grew,
And all the world caught music from your mouth;
I saw the light as one who had been blind,
And knew my sun and song and spring were you.
Soul's Birth
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 its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro' heaven's bars,
It heard God's voice that bade it down to earth.
Love and Death
Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?
Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see
The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro' our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.
For the Anniversary of John Keats' Death
(February 23, 1821)
At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet's head is laid,
Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,
And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone
With visions of the sunny earth and sea.
Silence
(To Eleonora Duse)
We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.
O woman who divined our weariness,
And set the crown of silence on your art,
From what undreamed-of depth within your heart
Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free
To hear an instant, high above earth's stress,
The silent music of infinity?
The Return
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 the volumes fain
To have me with them always as before?
But Giorgione's Venus did not deign
To lift her lids, nor did the subtle smile
Of Mona Lisa deepen. Madeleine
Still wept against the glory of her hair,
Nor did the lovers part their lips the while,
But kissed unheeding that I watched them there.
Fear
I am afraid, oh I am so afraid!
The cold black fear is clutching me to-night
As long ago when they would take the light
And leave the little child who would have prayed,
Frozen and sleepless at the thought of death.
My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon;
I shall not know if it be night or noon,--
Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath?
Will no one fight the Terror for my sake,
The heavy darkness that no dawn will break?
How can they leave me in that dark alone,
Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much,
And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch,--
How can they shut me underneath a stone?
Anadyomene
The wide, bright temple of the world I found,
And entered from the dizzy infinite
That I might kneel and worship thee in it;
Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round
Of silver music sound on orbed sound,
For measured spaces where the shrines are lit,
And men with wisdom or with little wit
Implore the gods that mercy may abound.
Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee
My summons came across the endless spaces?
Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me
Now that I seek for thee in human faces;
Answer my prayer or set my spirit free
Again to drift along the starry places.
Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
Who stumbled in before them when the fight
Had left him victor, with a victor's right.
I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;
He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,
And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,
Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light
As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see
And only she has hid her face away,
And yet I ween she loved him more than they,
And very fairly fashioned was her face.
Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility,
She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.
To an Aeolian Harp
The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,
Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know,
As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song,
Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live,
The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands
Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong
In sweeping sadness of the winds that give
Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.
To Erinna
Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,
Do you go sorrowing because of this
In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be
A silent music men have never heard,
A dream in all our souls that we may say:
"Her voice had all the rapture of the sea,
And all the clear cool quiver of a bird
Deep in a forest at the break of day"?
To Cleis
"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,
Cleis, the beloved. "
Sapphic fragment.
When the dusk was wet with dew,
Cleis, did the muses nine
Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile
When she crooned to still your cries,
She, a muse in human guise,
Who forsook her lyre awhile?
Did you feel her wild heart beat?
Did the warmth of all the sun
Thro' your little body run
When she kissed your hands and feet?
Did your fingers, babywise,
Touch her face and touch her hair,
Did you think your mother fair,
Could you bear her burning eyes?
Are the songs that soothed your fears
Vanished like a vanished flame,
Save the line where shines your name
Starlike down the graying years?
Cleis speaks no word to me,
For the land where she has gone
Lieth mute at dusk and dawn
Like a windless tideless sea.
Paris in Spring
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 the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it's Paris, it's Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.
The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it's Paris, it's Paris,
And spring-time's come again.
Madeira from the Sea
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 forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep,
Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.
City Vignettes
I
Dawn
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.
II
Dusk
The city's street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro' whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at Night
The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.
By the Sea
Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.
To him love-making is an art,
And as a flutist plays a flute,
So does he play upon his heart
A music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine,
He would not have me answer him.
To hide my eyes within the night
I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam
Alternately with red and white.
My laughter smites upon my ears,
So one who cries and wakes from sleep
Knows not it is himself he hears.
What if my voice should let him know
The mocking words were all a sham,
And lips that laugh could tremble so?
What if I lost the power to lie,
And he should only hear his name
In one low, broken cry?
On the Death of Swinburne
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 wind doth mould a wave of fire;
From strangely fashioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.
I think the singing understands
That he who sang is still,
And Iseult cries that he is dead,--
Does not Dolores bow her head
And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?
New singing now the singer hears
To lyre and lute and harp;
Catullus waits to welcome him,
And thro' the twilight sweet and dim,
Sappho's forgotten songs are falling on his ears.
Triolets
I
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
(Written in a copy of "La Vita Nuova". For M. C. S. )
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I'd never waste my time like this--
If you were Lady Beatrice
I'd woo and then demand a kiss,
Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine.
III
(Written in a copy of "The Poems of Sappho". )
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago
Could never dream that over seas,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The wind would blow such songs as these--
I wonder now if she can know,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago?
IV
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air--
All of my lost hopes seem
Dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
Going I know not where,
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air.
Vox Corporis
The beast to the beast is calling,
And the soul bends down to wait;
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,
The white man calls his mate.
The beast to the beast is calling,
They rush through the twilight sweet,
But the soul is a wary hunter,
He will not let them meet.
A Ballad of Two Knights
Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head. "
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace. "
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair--
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I ween that each knight smiled.
Christmas Carol
The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine,
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
And gifts of precious wine.
The shepherds came from out the north,
Their coats were brown and old,
They brought Him little new-born lambs--
They had not any gold.
The wise-men came from out the east,
And they were wrapped in white;
The star that led them all the way
Did glorify the night.
The angels came from heaven high,
And they were clad with wings;
And lo, they brought a joyful song
The host of heaven sings.
The kings they knocked upon the door,
The wise-men entered in,
The shepherds followed after them
To hear the song begin.
And Mary held the little child
And sat upon the ground;
She looked up, she looked down,
She looked all around.
The angels sang thro' all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.
The Faery Forest
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.
A Fantasy
Her voice is like clear water
That drips upon a stone
In forests far and silent
Where Quiet plays alone.
Her thoughts are like the lotus
Abloom by sacred streams
Beneath the temple arches
Where Quiet sits and dreams.
Her kisses are the roses
That glow while dusk is deep
In Persian garden closes
Where Quiet falls asleep.
A Minuet of Mozart's
Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.
Twilight
Dreamily over the roofs
The cold spring rain is falling,
Out in the lonely tree
A bird is calling, calling.
Slowly over the earth
The wings of night are falling;
My heart like the bird in the tree
Is calling, calling, calling.
The Prayer
My answered prayer came up to me,
And in the silence thus spake he:
"O you who prayed for me to come,
Your greeting is but cold and dumb. "
My heart made answer: "You are fair,
But I have prayed too long to care.
Why came you not when all was new,
And I had died for joy of you. "
Two Songs for a Child
I
Grandfather's Love
They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn't put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn't understand.
I thought they must have hidden it,
I hunted for it all the day,
And when I told them so at night
They smiled and turned their heads away.
They say that love is something kind,
That I can never see or touch.
I wish he'd sent me something else,
I like his cough-drops twice as much.
II
The Kind Moon
I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.
He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.
Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.
On the Tower
Under the leaf of many a Fable lies the Truth for those who look for it.
Jami.
On the Tower
(A play in one act. )
The Knight.
The Lady.
Voices of men and women on the ground at the foot of the tower.
The voice of the Knight's Page.
The top of a high battlemented tower of a castle. A stone ledge,
which serves as a seat, extends part way around the parapet.
Small clouds float by in the blue sky, and occasionally a swallow
passes.
Entrance R. from an unseen stairway which is supposed to extend
around the outside of the tower.
The Lady (unseen).
Oh do not climb so fast, for I am faint
With looking down the tower to where the earth
Lies dreaming in the sun. I fear to fall.
The Knight (unseen).
Lean on me, love, my love, and look not down.
L.
Call me not "love", call me your conquered foe,
That now, since you have battered down her gates,
Gives you the keys that lock the highest tower
And mounts with you to prove her homage true;
Oh bid me go no farther lest I fall,
My foot has slipped upon the rain-worn stones,
Why are the stairs so narrow and so steep?
Let us go back, my lord.
K.
Are you afraid,
Who were so dauntless till the walls gave way?
Courage, my sweet. I would that I could climb
A thousand times by wind-swept stairs like these,
That lead so near to heaven.
L.
Sir, you may,
You are a knight and very valorous;
I am a woman. I shall never come
This way but once.
(The Knight and the Lady appear on the top of the tower. )
K.
Kiss me at last, my love.
L.
Oh, my sweet lord, I am too tired to kiss.
Look how the earth is like an emerald,
With rivers veined and flawed with fallow fields.
K. (Lifting her veil)
Then I kiss you, a thousand thousand kisses
For all the days ere I had won to you
Beyond the walls and gates you barred so close.
Call me at last your love, your castle's lord.
L. (After a pause)
I love you.
(She kisses him. Her veil blows away like a white butterfly
over the parapet. Faint cries and laughter from men and women
under the tower. )
Men and Women.
The veil, the lady's veil!
(The knight takes the lady in his arms. )
L.
My lord, I pray you loose me from your arms
Lest that my people see how much we love.
K.
May they not see us? All of them have loved.
L.
But you have been an enemy, my lord,
With walls between us and with moss-grown moats,
Now on a sudden must I kiss your mouth?
I who was taught before I learned to speak
That all my house was hostile unto yours,
Now can I put my head against your breast
Here in the sight of all who choose to come?
K.
Are we not past the caring for their eyes
And nearer to the heaven than to earth?
Look up and see.
L.
I only see your face.
(She touches his hair with her hands. Murmuring under the tower. )
K.
Why came we here in all the noon-day light
With only darting swallows over us
To make a speck of darkness on the sun?
Let us go down where walls will shut us round.
Your castle has a hundred quiet halls,
A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie
On things put by, forgotten long ago.
Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened,
We two shall draw them close and bid them sing--
Forgotten games, forgotten books still open
Where you had laid them by at vesper-time,
And your embroidery, whereon half-worked
Weeps Amor wounded by a rose's thorn.
Shall I not see the room in which you slept,
Palpitant still and breathing of your thoughts,
Where maiden dreams adown the ways of sleep
Swept noiselessly with damosels and knights
To tourneys where the trumpet made no sound,
Blow as he might, the scarlet trumpeter,
And were the dreams not sometimes brimmed with tears
That waked you when the night was loneliest?
Will you not bring me to your oratory
Where prayers arose like little birds set free
Still upward, upward without sound of flight?
Shall I not find your turrets toward the north,
Where you defied white winter armed for war;
Your southern casements where the sun blows in
Between the leaf-bent boughs the wind has lifted?
Shall we not see the sunrise toward the east,
Watch dawn by dawn the rose of day unfolding
Its golden-hearted beauty sovereignly;
And toward the west look quietly at evening?
Shall I not see all these and all your treasures?
In carven coffers hidden in the dark
Have you not laid a sapphire lit with flame
And amethysts set round with deep-wrought gold,
Perhaps a ruby?
L.
All my gems are yours
And all my chambers curtained from the sun.
My lord shall see them all, in time, in time.
(The sun begins to sink. )
K.
Shall I not see them now? To-day, to-night?
L.
How could I show you in one day, my lord,
My castle and my treasures and my tower?
Let all the days to come suffice for this
Since all the past days made them what they are.
You will not be impatient, my sweet lord.
Some of the halls have long been locked and barred,
And some have secret doors and hard to find
Till suddenly you touch them unawares,
And down a sable way runs silver light.
We two will search together for the keys,
But not to-day. Let us sit here to-day,
Since all is yours and always will be yours.
(The stars appear faintly one by one. )
K. (After a pause. )
I grow a little drowsy with the dusk.
L. (Singing. )
There was a man that loved a maid,
(Sleep and take your rest)
Over her lips his kiss was laid,
Over her heart, his breast.
(The knight sleeps. )
All of his vows were sweet to hear,
Sweet was his kiss to take;
Why was her breast so quick to fear,
Why was her heart, to break?
Why was the man so glad to woo?
(Sleep and take your rest)
Why were the maiden's words so few----
(She sees that he is asleep, and slipping off her long cloak-like
outer garment, she pillows his head upon it against the parapet,
and half kneeling at his feet she sings very softly:)
I love you, I love you, I love you,
I am the flower at your feet,
The birds and the stars are above you,
My place is more sweet.
The birds and the stars are above you,
They envy the flower in the grass,
For I, only I, while I love you
Can die as you pass.
(Light clouds veil the stars, growing denser constantly.
The castle bell rings for vespers, and rising, the lady moves
to a corner of the parapet and kneels there. )
L.
Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus----
Voice of the Page (from the foot of the tower. )
My lord, my lord, they call for you at court!
(The knight wakes. It is now quite dark. )
There is a tourney toward; your enemy
Has challenged you. My lord, make haste to come!
(The knight rises and gropes his way toward the stairs. )
K.
I will make haste. Await me where you are.
(To himself. )
There was a lady on this tower with me----
(He glances around hurriedly but does not see her in the darkness. )
Page.
My lord has far to ride before the dawn!
K. (To himself. )
Why should I tarry?
(To the page. )
Bring my horse and shield!
(He descends. As the noise of his footfall on the stairs dies away,
the lady gropes toward the stairway, then turns suddenly, and going to
the ledge where they have sat, she throws herself over the parapet. )
CURTAIN.
[End of Helen of Troy And Other Poems. ]
Sara Teasdale
Sara 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.
It is interesting to note that in Teasdale's Collected Works, about
half of the poems in this volume--some more justly than others--have
been excluded, and most of the rest have been slightly changed. Most
of the poems from this volume which were selected to be included in
"Love Songs" also had some minor changes. This edition preserves the
original readings, but they are not to be considered authoritative.
End of Project Gutenberg's Helen of Troy and Other Poems, by Sara Teasdale
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1. E.
The Wanderer
I saw the sunset-colored sands,
The Nile like flowing fire between,
Where Rameses stares forth serene,
And Ammon's heavy temple stands.
I saw the rocks where long ago,
Above the sea that cries and breaks,
Bright Perseus with Medusa's snakes
Set free the maiden white like snow.
And many skies have covered me,
And many winds have blown me forth,
And I have loved the green bright north,
And I have loved the cold sweet sea.
But what to me are north and south,
And what the lure of many lands,
Since you have leaned to catch my hands
And lay a kiss upon my mouth.
I Would Live in Your Love
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul
as it leads.
May
The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.
Rispetto
Was that his step that sounded on the stair?
Was that his knock I heard upon the door?
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,
And yet I would that he might come once more.
It was the wind I heard, that mocks at me,
The bitter wind that is more cruel than he;
It was the wind that knocked upon the door,
But he will never knock nor enter more.
Less than the Cloud to the Wind
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 lea,
More than heaven to earth
Art thou to me.
Buried Love
I shall bury my weary Love
Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
Where none can see.
I shall put no flowers at his head,
Nor stone at his feet,
For the mouth I loved so much
Was bittersweet.
I shall go no more to his grave,
For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
As my hands can hold.
I shall stay all day in the sun
Where the wide winds blow,
But oh, I shall weep at night
When none will know.
Song
O woe is me, my heart is sad,
For I should never know
If Love came by like any lad,
Without his silver bow.
Or if he left his arrows sharp
And came a minstrel weary,
I'd never tell him by his harp
Nor know him for my dearie.
"O go your ways and have no fear,
For tho' Love passes by,
He'll come a hundred times, my dear,
Before your turn to die. "
Pierrot
Pierrot stands in the garden
Beneath a waning moon,
And on his lute he fashions
A little silver tune.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
He thinks he plays for me,
But I am quite forgotten
Under the cherry tree.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
And all the roses know
That Pierrot loves his music,
But I love Pierrot.
At Night
Love said, "Wake still and think of me,"
Sleep, "Close your eyes till break of day,"
But Dreams came by and smilingly
Gave both to Love and Sleep their way.
Song
When Love comes singing to his heart
That would not wake for me,
I think that I shall know his joy
By my own ecstasy.
And tho' the sea were all between,
The time their hands shall meet,
My heart will know his happiness,
So wildly it will beat.
And when he bends above her mouth,
Rejoicing for his sake,
My soul will sing a little song,
But oh, my heart will break.
Love in Autumn
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
And cruel winter holds the land,
The Love that finds no place to hide
Will run and catch my hand.
I shall not care to have him then,
I shall be bitter and a-cold--
It grows too late for frolicking
When all the world is old.
Then little hiding Love, come forth,
Come forth before the autumn goes,
And let us seek thro' ruined paths
The garden's last red rose.
The Kiss
I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.
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.
November
The world is tired, the year is old,
The little leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Among the rushes dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our poor love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
A Song of the Princess
The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.
But Love that is so bitter
Hath put within her heart
A longing for the scornful knight
Who silent stands apart.
And tho' the others praise and plead,
She maketh no reply,
Yet for a single word from him,
I ween that she would die.
The Wind
A wind is blowing over my soul,
I hear it cry the whole night thro'--
Is there no peace for me on earth
Except with you?
Alas, the wind has made me wise,
Over my naked soul it blew,--
There is no peace for me on earth
Even with you.
A Winter Night
My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro.
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
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.
The Metropolitan Tower
We walked together in the dusk
To watch the tower grow dimly white,
And saw it lift against the sky
Its flower of amber light.
You talked of half a hundred things,
I kept each little word you said;
And when at last the hour was full,
I saw the light turn red.
You did not know the time had come,
You did not see the sudden flower,
Nor know that in my heart Love's birth
Was reckoned from that hour.
Gramercy Park
For W. P.
The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
Lest if we entered, peace would go.
We circled it a dozen times,
The wind was blowing from the sea,
I only felt your restless eyes
Whose love was like a cloak for me.
Oh heavy gates that fate has locked
To bar the joy we may not win,
Peace would go out forevermore
If we should dare to enter in.
In the Metropolitan Museum
Within the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently,
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.
The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment's space,
And thro' the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.
Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you stooped
To find the present with a kiss.
Coney Island
Why did you bring me here?
The sand is white with snow,
Over the wooden domes
The winter sea-winds blow--
There is no shelter near,
Come, let us go.
With foam of icy lace
The sea creeps up the sand,
The wind is like a hand
That strikes us in the face.
Doors that June set a-swing
Are bolted long ago;
We try them uselessly--
Alas, there cannot be
For us a second spring;
Come, let us go.
Union Square
With the man I love who loves me not,
I walked in the street-lamps' flare;
We watched the world go home that night
In a flood through Union Square.
I leaned to catch the words he said
That were light as a snowflake falling;
Ah well that he never leaned to hear
The words my heart was calling.
And on we walked and on we walked
Past the fiery lights of the picture shows--
Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by
On the errand each man knows.
And on we walked and on we walked,
At the door at last we said good-bye;
I knew by his smile he had not heard
My heart's unuttered cry.
With the man I love who loves me not
I walked in the street-lamps' flare--
But oh, the girls who can ask for love
In the lights of Union Square.
Central Park at Dusk
Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.
There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything--
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.
Young Love
I
I cannot heed the words they say,
The lights grow far away and dim,
Amid the laughing men and maids
My eyes unbidden seek for him.
I hope that when he smiles at me
He does not guess my joy and pain,
For if he did, he is too kind
To ever look my way again.
II
I have a secret in my heart
No ears have ever heard,
And still it sings there day by day
Most like a caged bird.
And when it beats against the bars,
I do not set it free,
For I am happier to know
It only sings for me.
III
I wrote his name along the beach,
I love the letters so.
Far up it seemed and out of reach,
For still the tide was low.
But oh, the sea came creeping up,
And washed the name away,
And on the sand where it had been
A bit of sea-grass lay.
A bit of sea-grass on the sand,
Dropped from a mermaid's hair--
Ah, had she come to kiss his name
And leave a token there?
IV
What am I that he should love me,
He who stands so far above me,
What am I?
I am like a cowslip turning
Toward the sky,
Where a planet's golden burning
Breaks the cowslip's heart with yearning,
What am I that he should love me,
What am I?
V
O dreams that flock about my sleep,
I pray you bring my love to me,
And let me think I hear his voice
Again ring free.
And if you care to please me well,
And live to-morrow in my mind,
Let him who was so cold before,
To-night seem kind.
VI
I plucked a daisy in the fields,
And there beneath the sun
I let its silver petals fall
One after one.
I said, "He loves me, loves me not,"
And oh, my heart beat fast,
The flower was kind, it let me say
"He loves me," last.
I kissed the little leafless stem,
But oh, my poor heart knew
The words the flower had said to me,
They were not true.
VII
I sent my love a letter,
And if he loves me not,
He shall not find my love for him
In any line or dot.
But if he loves me truly,
He'll find it hidden deep,
As dawn gleams red thro' chilly clouds
To eyes awaked from sleep.
VIII
The world is cold and gray and wet,
And I am heavy-hearted, yet
When I am home and look to see
The place my letters wait for me,
If I should find ONE letter there,
I think I should not greatly care
If it were rainy or were fair,
For all the world would suddenly
Seem like a festival to me.
IX
I hid three words within my heart,
That longed to fly to him,
At dawn they woke me with a start,
They sang till day was dim.
And now at last I let them fly,
As little birds should do,
And he will know the first is "I",
The others "Love" and "You".
X
Across the twilight's violet
His curtained window glimmers gold;
Oh happy light that round my love
Can fold.
Oh happy book within his hand,
Oh happy page he glorifies,
Oh happy little word beneath
His eyes.
But oh, thrice happy, happy I
Who love him more than songs can tell,
For in the heaven of his heart
I dwell.
Sonnets and Lyrics
Primavera Mia
As kings who see their little life-day pass,
Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,
So had the trees that autumn-time laid down
Their golden garments on the faded grass,
When I, who watched the seasons in the glass
Of mine own thoughts, saw all the autumn's brown
Leap into life and don a sunny gown
Of leafage such as happy April has.
Great spring came singing upward from the south;
For in my heart, far carried on the wind,
Your words like winged seeds took root and grew,
And all the world caught music from your mouth;
I saw the light as one who had been blind,
And knew my sun and song and spring were you.
Soul's Birth
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 its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro' heaven's bars,
It heard God's voice that bade it down to earth.
Love and Death
Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?
Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see
The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro' our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.
For the Anniversary of John Keats' Death
(February 23, 1821)
At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet's head is laid,
Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,
And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone
With visions of the sunny earth and sea.
Silence
(To Eleonora Duse)
We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.
O woman who divined our weariness,
And set the crown of silence on your art,
From what undreamed-of depth within your heart
Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free
To hear an instant, high above earth's stress,
The silent music of infinity?
The Return
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 the volumes fain
To have me with them always as before?
But Giorgione's Venus did not deign
To lift her lids, nor did the subtle smile
Of Mona Lisa deepen. Madeleine
Still wept against the glory of her hair,
Nor did the lovers part their lips the while,
But kissed unheeding that I watched them there.
Fear
I am afraid, oh I am so afraid!
The cold black fear is clutching me to-night
As long ago when they would take the light
And leave the little child who would have prayed,
Frozen and sleepless at the thought of death.
My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon;
I shall not know if it be night or noon,--
Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath?
Will no one fight the Terror for my sake,
The heavy darkness that no dawn will break?
How can they leave me in that dark alone,
Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much,
And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch,--
How can they shut me underneath a stone?
Anadyomene
The wide, bright temple of the world I found,
And entered from the dizzy infinite
That I might kneel and worship thee in it;
Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round
Of silver music sound on orbed sound,
For measured spaces where the shrines are lit,
And men with wisdom or with little wit
Implore the gods that mercy may abound.
Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee
My summons came across the endless spaces?
Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me
Now that I seek for thee in human faces;
Answer my prayer or set my spirit free
Again to drift along the starry places.
Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
Who stumbled in before them when the fight
Had left him victor, with a victor's right.
I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;
He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,
And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,
Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light
As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see
And only she has hid her face away,
And yet I ween she loved him more than they,
And very fairly fashioned was her face.
Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility,
She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.
To an Aeolian Harp
The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,
Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know,
As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song,
Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live,
The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands
Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong
In sweeping sadness of the winds that give
Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.
To Erinna
Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,
Do you go sorrowing because of this
In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be
A silent music men have never heard,
A dream in all our souls that we may say:
"Her voice had all the rapture of the sea,
And all the clear cool quiver of a bird
Deep in a forest at the break of day"?
To Cleis
"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,
Cleis, the beloved. "
Sapphic fragment.
When the dusk was wet with dew,
Cleis, did the muses nine
Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile
When she crooned to still your cries,
She, a muse in human guise,
Who forsook her lyre awhile?
Did you feel her wild heart beat?
Did the warmth of all the sun
Thro' your little body run
When she kissed your hands and feet?
Did your fingers, babywise,
Touch her face and touch her hair,
Did you think your mother fair,
Could you bear her burning eyes?
Are the songs that soothed your fears
Vanished like a vanished flame,
Save the line where shines your name
Starlike down the graying years?
Cleis speaks no word to me,
For the land where she has gone
Lieth mute at dusk and dawn
Like a windless tideless sea.
Paris in Spring
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 the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it's Paris, it's Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.
The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it's Paris, it's Paris,
And spring-time's come again.
Madeira from the Sea
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 forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep,
Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.
City Vignettes
I
Dawn
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.
II
Dusk
The city's street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro' whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at Night
The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.
By the Sea
Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.
To him love-making is an art,
And as a flutist plays a flute,
So does he play upon his heart
A music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine,
He would not have me answer him.
To hide my eyes within the night
I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam
Alternately with red and white.
My laughter smites upon my ears,
So one who cries and wakes from sleep
Knows not it is himself he hears.
What if my voice should let him know
The mocking words were all a sham,
And lips that laugh could tremble so?
What if I lost the power to lie,
And he should only hear his name
In one low, broken cry?
On the Death of Swinburne
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 wind doth mould a wave of fire;
From strangely fashioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.
I think the singing understands
That he who sang is still,
And Iseult cries that he is dead,--
Does not Dolores bow her head
And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?
New singing now the singer hears
To lyre and lute and harp;
Catullus waits to welcome him,
And thro' the twilight sweet and dim,
Sappho's forgotten songs are falling on his ears.
Triolets
I
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
(Written in a copy of "La Vita Nuova". For M. C. S. )
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I'd never waste my time like this--
If you were Lady Beatrice
I'd woo and then demand a kiss,
Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine.
III
(Written in a copy of "The Poems of Sappho". )
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago
Could never dream that over seas,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The wind would blow such songs as these--
I wonder now if she can know,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago?
IV
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air--
All of my lost hopes seem
Dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
Going I know not where,
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air.
Vox Corporis
The beast to the beast is calling,
And the soul bends down to wait;
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,
The white man calls his mate.
The beast to the beast is calling,
They rush through the twilight sweet,
But the soul is a wary hunter,
He will not let them meet.
A Ballad of Two Knights
Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head. "
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace. "
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair--
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I ween that each knight smiled.
Christmas Carol
The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine,
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
And gifts of precious wine.
The shepherds came from out the north,
Their coats were brown and old,
They brought Him little new-born lambs--
They had not any gold.
The wise-men came from out the east,
And they were wrapped in white;
The star that led them all the way
Did glorify the night.
The angels came from heaven high,
And they were clad with wings;
And lo, they brought a joyful song
The host of heaven sings.
The kings they knocked upon the door,
The wise-men entered in,
The shepherds followed after them
To hear the song begin.
And Mary held the little child
And sat upon the ground;
She looked up, she looked down,
She looked all around.
The angels sang thro' all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.
The Faery Forest
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.
A Fantasy
Her voice is like clear water
That drips upon a stone
In forests far and silent
Where Quiet plays alone.
Her thoughts are like the lotus
Abloom by sacred streams
Beneath the temple arches
Where Quiet sits and dreams.
Her kisses are the roses
That glow while dusk is deep
In Persian garden closes
Where Quiet falls asleep.
A Minuet of Mozart's
Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.
Twilight
Dreamily over the roofs
The cold spring rain is falling,
Out in the lonely tree
A bird is calling, calling.
Slowly over the earth
The wings of night are falling;
My heart like the bird in the tree
Is calling, calling, calling.
The Prayer
My answered prayer came up to me,
And in the silence thus spake he:
"O you who prayed for me to come,
Your greeting is but cold and dumb. "
My heart made answer: "You are fair,
But I have prayed too long to care.
Why came you not when all was new,
And I had died for joy of you. "
Two Songs for a Child
I
Grandfather's Love
They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn't put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn't understand.
I thought they must have hidden it,
I hunted for it all the day,
And when I told them so at night
They smiled and turned their heads away.
They say that love is something kind,
That I can never see or touch.
I wish he'd sent me something else,
I like his cough-drops twice as much.
II
The Kind Moon
I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.
He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.
Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.
On the Tower
Under the leaf of many a Fable lies the Truth for those who look for it.
Jami.
On the Tower
(A play in one act. )
The Knight.
The Lady.
Voices of men and women on the ground at the foot of the tower.
The voice of the Knight's Page.
The top of a high battlemented tower of a castle. A stone ledge,
which serves as a seat, extends part way around the parapet.
Small clouds float by in the blue sky, and occasionally a swallow
passes.
Entrance R. from an unseen stairway which is supposed to extend
around the outside of the tower.
The Lady (unseen).
Oh do not climb so fast, for I am faint
With looking down the tower to where the earth
Lies dreaming in the sun. I fear to fall.
The Knight (unseen).
Lean on me, love, my love, and look not down.
L.
Call me not "love", call me your conquered foe,
That now, since you have battered down her gates,
Gives you the keys that lock the highest tower
And mounts with you to prove her homage true;
Oh bid me go no farther lest I fall,
My foot has slipped upon the rain-worn stones,
Why are the stairs so narrow and so steep?
Let us go back, my lord.
K.
Are you afraid,
Who were so dauntless till the walls gave way?
Courage, my sweet. I would that I could climb
A thousand times by wind-swept stairs like these,
That lead so near to heaven.
L.
Sir, you may,
You are a knight and very valorous;
I am a woman. I shall never come
This way but once.
(The Knight and the Lady appear on the top of the tower. )
K.
Kiss me at last, my love.
L.
Oh, my sweet lord, I am too tired to kiss.
Look how the earth is like an emerald,
With rivers veined and flawed with fallow fields.
K. (Lifting her veil)
Then I kiss you, a thousand thousand kisses
For all the days ere I had won to you
Beyond the walls and gates you barred so close.
Call me at last your love, your castle's lord.
L. (After a pause)
I love you.
(She kisses him. Her veil blows away like a white butterfly
over the parapet. Faint cries and laughter from men and women
under the tower. )
Men and Women.
The veil, the lady's veil!
(The knight takes the lady in his arms. )
L.
My lord, I pray you loose me from your arms
Lest that my people see how much we love.
K.
May they not see us? All of them have loved.
L.
But you have been an enemy, my lord,
With walls between us and with moss-grown moats,
Now on a sudden must I kiss your mouth?
I who was taught before I learned to speak
That all my house was hostile unto yours,
Now can I put my head against your breast
Here in the sight of all who choose to come?
K.
Are we not past the caring for their eyes
And nearer to the heaven than to earth?
Look up and see.
L.
I only see your face.
(She touches his hair with her hands. Murmuring under the tower. )
K.
Why came we here in all the noon-day light
With only darting swallows over us
To make a speck of darkness on the sun?
Let us go down where walls will shut us round.
Your castle has a hundred quiet halls,
A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie
On things put by, forgotten long ago.
Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened,
We two shall draw them close and bid them sing--
Forgotten games, forgotten books still open
Where you had laid them by at vesper-time,
And your embroidery, whereon half-worked
Weeps Amor wounded by a rose's thorn.
Shall I not see the room in which you slept,
Palpitant still and breathing of your thoughts,
Where maiden dreams adown the ways of sleep
Swept noiselessly with damosels and knights
To tourneys where the trumpet made no sound,
Blow as he might, the scarlet trumpeter,
And were the dreams not sometimes brimmed with tears
That waked you when the night was loneliest?
Will you not bring me to your oratory
Where prayers arose like little birds set free
Still upward, upward without sound of flight?
Shall I not find your turrets toward the north,
Where you defied white winter armed for war;
Your southern casements where the sun blows in
Between the leaf-bent boughs the wind has lifted?
Shall we not see the sunrise toward the east,
Watch dawn by dawn the rose of day unfolding
Its golden-hearted beauty sovereignly;
And toward the west look quietly at evening?
Shall I not see all these and all your treasures?
In carven coffers hidden in the dark
Have you not laid a sapphire lit with flame
And amethysts set round with deep-wrought gold,
Perhaps a ruby?
L.
All my gems are yours
And all my chambers curtained from the sun.
My lord shall see them all, in time, in time.
(The sun begins to sink. )
K.
Shall I not see them now? To-day, to-night?
L.
How could I show you in one day, my lord,
My castle and my treasures and my tower?
Let all the days to come suffice for this
Since all the past days made them what they are.
You will not be impatient, my sweet lord.
Some of the halls have long been locked and barred,
And some have secret doors and hard to find
Till suddenly you touch them unawares,
And down a sable way runs silver light.
We two will search together for the keys,
But not to-day. Let us sit here to-day,
Since all is yours and always will be yours.
(The stars appear faintly one by one. )
K. (After a pause. )
I grow a little drowsy with the dusk.
L. (Singing. )
There was a man that loved a maid,
(Sleep and take your rest)
Over her lips his kiss was laid,
Over her heart, his breast.
(The knight sleeps. )
All of his vows were sweet to hear,
Sweet was his kiss to take;
Why was her breast so quick to fear,
Why was her heart, to break?
Why was the man so glad to woo?
(Sleep and take your rest)
Why were the maiden's words so few----
(She sees that he is asleep, and slipping off her long cloak-like
outer garment, she pillows his head upon it against the parapet,
and half kneeling at his feet she sings very softly:)
I love you, I love you, I love you,
I am the flower at your feet,
The birds and the stars are above you,
My place is more sweet.
The birds and the stars are above you,
They envy the flower in the grass,
For I, only I, while I love you
Can die as you pass.
(Light clouds veil the stars, growing denser constantly.
The castle bell rings for vespers, and rising, the lady moves
to a corner of the parapet and kneels there. )
L.
Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus----
Voice of the Page (from the foot of the tower. )
My lord, my lord, they call for you at court!
(The knight wakes. It is now quite dark. )
There is a tourney toward; your enemy
Has challenged you. My lord, make haste to come!
(The knight rises and gropes his way toward the stairs. )
K.
I will make haste. Await me where you are.
(To himself. )
There was a lady on this tower with me----
(He glances around hurriedly but does not see her in the darkness. )
Page.
My lord has far to ride before the dawn!
K. (To himself. )
Why should I tarry?
(To the page. )
Bring my horse and shield!
(He descends. As the noise of his footfall on the stairs dies away,
the lady gropes toward the stairway, then turns suddenly, and going to
the ledge where they have sat, she throws herself over the parapet. )
CURTAIN.
[End of Helen of Troy And Other Poems. ]
Sara Teasdale
Sara 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.
It is interesting to note that in Teasdale's Collected Works, about
half of the poems in this volume--some more justly than others--have
been excluded, and most of the rest have been slightly changed. Most
of the poems from this volume which were selected to be included in
"Love Songs" also had some minor changes. This edition preserves the
original readings, but they are not to be considered authoritative.
End of Project Gutenberg's Helen of Troy and Other Poems, by Sara Teasdale
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