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RIVERS TO THE SEA
BY SARA TEASDALE
To Ernst
[1915]
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Part II
Indian Summer
- LYRIC night of the lingering Indian Summer,
- Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
- Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
- Ceaseless, insistent.
- The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
- The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence,
- Under a moon waning and worn and broken,
- Tired with summer.
- Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
- Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
- Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
- Snow-hushed and heartless.
- Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
- While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
- As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
- Lest they forget them.
The Sea Wind
- I AM a pool in a peaceful place,
- I greet the great sky face to face,
- I know the stars and the stately moon
- And the wind that runs with rippling shoon--
- But why does it always bring to me
- The far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?
- The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green,
- But the wind comes whispering in between,
- In the dead of night when the sky is deep
- The wind comes waking me out of sleep--
- Why does it always bring to me
- The far-off, terrible call of the sea?
The Cloud
- I AM a cloud in the heaven's height,
- The stars are lit for my delight,
- Tireless and changeful, swift and free,
- I cast my shadow on hill and sea--
- But why do the pines on the mountain's crest
- Call to me always, "Rest, rest"?
- I throw my mantle over the moon
- And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,
- Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,
- I am a child of the heartless wind--
- But oh the pines on the mountain's crest
- Whispering always, "Rest, rest."
The Poor House
- HOPE went by and Peace went by
- And would not enter in;
- Youth went by and Health wnt by
- And Love that is their kin.
- Those within the house shed tears
- On their bitter bread;
- Some were old and some were mad,
- And some were sick a-bed.
- Gray Death saw the wretched house
- And even he passed by--
- "They have never lived," he said,
- "They can wait to die."
New year's Dawn--Broadway
- WHEN the horns wear thin
- And the noise, like a garment outworn,
- Falls from the night,
- The tattered and shivering night,
- That thinks she is gay;
- When the patient silence comes back,
- And retires,
- And returns,
- Rebuffed by a ribald song,
- Wounded by vehement cries,
- Fleeing again to the stars--
- Ashamed of her sister the night;
- Oh, then they steal home,
- The blinded, the pitiful ones
- With their gew-gaws still in their hands,
- Reeling with odorous breath
- And thick, coarse words on their tongues.
- They get them to bed, somehow,
- And sleep the forgiving,
- Comes thru the scattering tumult
- And closes their eyes.
- The stars sink down ashamed
- And the dawn awakes,
- Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
- Dizzy and sick.
The Star
- A WHITE star born in the evening glow
- Looked to the round green world below,
- And saw a pool in a wooded place
- That held like a jewel her mirrored face.
- She said to the pool: "Oh, wondrous deep,
- I love you, I give you my light to keep.
- Oh, more profound than the moving sea
- That never has shown myself to me!
- Oh, fathomless as the sky is far,
- Hold forever your tremulous star!"
- But out of the woods as night grew cool
- A brown pig came to the little pool;
- It grunted and splashed and waded in
- And the deepest place but reached its chin.
- The water gurgled with tender glee
- And the mud churned up in it turbidly.
- The star grew pale and hid her face
- In a bit of floating cloud like lace.
Doctors
- EVERY night I lie awake
- And every day I lie abed
- And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
- Conferring at my head.
- They speak in scientific tones,
- Professional and low--
- One argues for a speedy cure,
- The other, sure and slow.
- To one so humble as myself
- It should be matter for some pride
- To have such noted fellows here,
- Conferring at my side.
The Inn of Earth
- I CAME to the crowded Inn of Earth,
- And called for a cup of wine,
- But the Host went by with averted eye
- From a thirst as keen as mine.
- Then I sat down with weariness
- And asked a bit of bread,
- But the Host went by with averted eye
- And never a word he said.
- While always from the outer night
- The waiting souls came in
- With stifled cries of sharp surprise
- At all the light and din.
- "Then give me a bed to sleep," I said,
- "For midnight comes apace"--
- But the Host went by with averted eye
- And I never saw his face.
- "Since there is neither food nor rest,
- I go where I fared before"--
- But the Host went by with averted eye
- And barred the outer door.
In the Carpenter's Shop
- MARY sat in the corner dreaming,
- Dim was the room and low,
- While in the dusk, the saw went screaming
- To and fro.
- Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
- Mary was watching them,
- Thinking of kings in the wintry weather
- At Bethlehem.
- Mary sat in the corner thinking,
- Jesus had grown a man;
- One by one her hopes were sinking
- As the years ran.
- Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
- Mary's thoughts were far--
- Angels sang in the wintry weather
- Under a star.
- Mary sat in the corner weeping,
- Bitter and hot her tears--
- Little faith were the angels keeping
- All the years.
The Carpenter's Son
- THE summer dawn came over-soon,
- The earth was like hot iron at noon
- In Nazareth;
- There fell no rain to ease the heat,
- And dusk drew on with tired feet
- And stifled breath.
- The shop was low and hot and square,
- And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air,
- While all day long
- The saw went tearing thru the oak
- That moaned as tho' the tree's heart broke
- Beneath its wrong.
- The narrow street was full of cries,
- Of bickering and snarling lies
- In many keys--
- The tongues of Egypt and of Rome
- And lands beyond the shifting foam
- Of windy seas.
- Sometimes a ruler riding fast
- Scattered the dark crowds as he passed,
- And drove them close
- In doorways, drawing broken breath
- Lest they be trampled to their death
- Where the dust rose.
- There in the gathering night and noise
- A group of Galilean boys
- Crowding to see
- Gray Joseph toiling with his son,
- Saw Jesus, when the task was done,
- Turn wearily.
- He passed them by with hurried tread
- Silently, nor raised his head,
- He who looked up
- Drinking all beauty from his birth
- Out of the heaven and the earth
- As from a cup.
- And Mary, who was growing old,
- Knew that the pottage would be cold
- When he returned;
- He hungered only for the night,
- And westward, bending sharp and bright,
- The thin moon burned.
- He reached the open western gate
- Where whining halt and leper wait,
- And came at last
- To the blue desert, where the deep
- Great seas of twilight lay asleep,
- Windless and vast.
- With shining eyes the stars awoke,
- The dew lay heavy on his cloak,
- The world was dim;
- And in the stillness he could hear
- His secret thoughts draw very near
- And call to him.
- Faint voices lifted shrill with pain
- And multitudinous as rain;
- From all the lands
- And all the villages thereof
- Men crying for the gift of love
- With outstretched hands.
- Voices that called with ceaseless crying,
- The broken and the blind, the dying,
- And those grown dumb
- Beneath oppression, and he heard
- Upon their lips a single word,
- "Come!"
- Their cries engulfed him like the night,
- The moon put out her placid light
- And black and low
- Nearer the heavy thunder drew,
- Hushing the voices . . . yet he knew
- That he would go.
- A quick-spun thread of lightning burns,
- And for a flash the day returns--
- He only hears
- Joseph, an old man bent and white
- Toiling alone from morn till night
- Thru all the years.
- Swift clouds make all the heavens blind,
- A storm is running on the wind--
- He only sees
- How Mary will stretch out her hands
- Sobbing, who never understands
- Voices like these.
The Mother of a Poet
- SHE is too kind, I think, for mortal things,
- Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth;
- God gave to her a shy and silver mirth,
- And made her soul as clear
- And softly singing as an orchard spring's
- In sheltered hollows all the sunny year--
- A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up
- And holds all heaven in its clarid cup,
- Mirror to holy meadows high and blue
- With stars like drops of dew.
- I love to think that never tears at night
- Have made her eyes less bright;
- That all her girlhood thru
- Never a cry of love made over-tense
- Her voice's innocence;
- That in her hands have lain,
- Flowers beaten by the rain,
- And little birds before they learned to sing
- Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.
- I love to think that with a wistful wonder
- She held her baby warm against her breast;
- That never any fear awoke whereunder
- She shuddered at her gift, or trembled lest
- Thru the great doors of birth
- Here to a windy earth
- She lured from heaven a half-unwilling guest.
- She caught and kept his first vague flickering smile,
- The faint upleaping of his spirit's fire;
- And for a long sweet while
- In her was all he asked of earth or heaven--
- But in the end how far,
- Past every shaken star,
- Should leap at last that arrow-like desire,
- His full-grown manhood's keen
- Ardor toward the unseen
- Dark mystery beyond the Pleiads seven.
- And in her heart she heard
- His first dim-spoken word--
- She only of them all could understand,
- Flushing to feel at last
- The silence over-past,
- Thrilling as tho' her hand had touched God's hand.
- But in the end how many words
- Winged on a flight she could not follow,
- Farther than skyward lark or swallow,
- His lips should free to lands she never knew;
- Braver than white sea-faring birds
- With a fearless melody,
- Flying over a shining sea,
- A star-white song between the blue and blue.
- Oh I have seen a lake as clear and fair
- As it were molten air,
- Lifting a lily upward to the sun.
- How should the water know the glowing heart
- That ever to the heaven lifts its fire,
- A golden and unchangeable desire?
- The water only knows
- The faint and rosy glows
- Of under-petals, opening apart.
- Yet in the soul of earth,
- Deep in the primal ground,
- Its searching roots are wound,
- And centuries have struggled toward its birth.
- So, in the man who sings,
- All of the voiceless horde
- >From the cold dawn of things
- Have their reward;
- All in whose pulses ran
- Blood that is his at last,
- >From the first stooping man
- Far in the winnowed past.
- Out of the tumult of their love and mating
- Each one created, seeing life was good--
- Dumb, till at last the song that they were waiting
- Breaks like brave April thru a wintry wood.
Rivers to the Sea
- BUT what of her whose heart is troubled by it,
- The mother who would soothe and set him free,
- Fearing the song's storm-shaken ecstasy--
- Oh, as the moon that has no power to quiet
- The strong wind-driven sea.
In Memoriam F. O. S.
- You go a long and lovely journey,
- For all the stars, like burning dew,
- Are luminous and luring footprints
- Of souls adventurous as you.
- Oh, if you lived on earth elated,
- How is it now that you can run
- Free of the weight of flesh and faring
- Far past the birthplace of the sun?
Twilight
- THE stately tragedy of dusk
- Drew to its perfect close,
- The virginal white evening star
- Sank, and the red moon rose.
Swallow Flight
- I LOVE my hour of wind and light,
- I love men's faces and their eyes,
- I love my spirit's veering flight
- Like swallows under evening skies,
Thoughts
- WHEN I can make my thoughts come forth
- To walk like ladies up and down,
- Each one puts on before the glass
- Her most becoming hat and gown.
- But oh, the shy and eager thoughts
- That hide and will not get them dressed,
- Why is it that they always seem
- So much more lovely than the rest?
To Dick, on His Sixth Birthday
- Tho' I am very old and wise,
- And you are neither wise nor old,
- When I look far into your eyes,
- I know things I was never told:
- I know how flame must strain and fret
- Prisoned in a mortal net;
- How joy with over-eager wings,
- Bruises the small heart where he sings;
- How too much life, like too much gold,
- Is sometimes very hard to hold. . . .
- All that is talking--I know
- This much is true, six years ago
- An angel living near the moon
- Walked thru the sky and sang a tune
- Plucking stars to make his crown--
- And suddenly two stars fell down,
- Two falling arrows made of light.
- Six years ago this very night
- I saw them fall and wondered why
- The angel dropped them from the sky--
- But when I saw your eyes I knew
- The angel sent the stars to you.
To Rose
- ROSE, when I remember you,
- Little lady, scarcely two,
- I am suddenly aware
- Of the angels in the air.
- All your softly gracious ways
- Make an island in my days
- Where my thoughts fly back to be
- Sheltered from too strong a sea.
- All your luminous delight
- Shines before me in the night
- When I grope for sleep and find
- Only shadows in my mind.
- Rose, when I remember you,
- White and glowing, pink and new,
- With so swift a sense of fun
- Altho' life has just begun;
- With so sure a pride of place
- In your very infant face,
- I should like to make a prayer
- To the angels in the air:
- "If an angel ever brings
- Me a baby in her wings,
- Please be certain that it grows
- Very, very much like Rose."
The Fountain
- ON in the deep blue night
- The fountain sang alone;
- It sang to the drowsy heart
- Of the satyr carved in stone.
- The fountain sang and sang
- But the satyr never stirred--
- Only the great white moon
- In the empty heaven heard.
- The fountain sang and sang
- And on the marble rim
- The milk-white peacocks slept,
- Their dreams were strange and dim.
- Bright dew was on the grass,
- And on the ilex dew,
- The dreamy milk-white birds
- Were all a-glisten too.
- The fountain sang and sang
- The things one cannot tell,
- The dreaming peacocks stirred
- And the gleaming dew-drops fell.
The Rose
- BENEATH my chamber window
- Pierrot was singing, singing;
- I heard his lute the whole night thru
- Until the east was red.
- Alas, alas, Pierrot,
- I had no rose for flinging
- Save one that drank my tears for dew
- Before its leaves were dead.
- I found it in the darkness,
- I kissed it once and threw it,
- The petals scattered over him,
- His song was turned to joy;
- And he will never know--
- Alas, the one who knew it!--
- The rose was plucked when dusk was dim
- Beside a laughing boy.
Dreams
- I GAVE my life to another lover,
- I gave my love, and all, and all--
- But over a dream the past will hover,
- Out of a dream the past will call.
- I tear myself from sleep with a shiver
- But on my breast a kiss is hot,
- And by my bed the ghostly giver
- Is waiting tho' I see him not.
"I am not yours"
- I AM not yours, not lost in you,
- Not lost, altho' I long to be
- Lost as a candle lit at noon,
- Lost as a snow-flake 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.
Pierrot's Song
- (For a picture by Dugald Walker)
- LADY, light in the east hangs low,
- Draw your veils of dream apart,
- Under the casement stands Pierrot
- Making a song to ease his heart.
- (Yet do not break the song too soon--
- I love to sing in the paling moon.)
- The petals are falling, heavy with dew,
- The stars have fainted out of the sky,
- Come to me, come, or else I too,
- Faint with the weight of love will die.
- (She comes--alas, I hoped to make
- Another stanza for her sake!)
Night in Arizona
- THE moon is a charring ember
- Dying into the dark;
- Off in the crouching mountains
- Coyotes bark.
- The stars are heavy in heaven,
- Too great for the sky to hold--
- What if they fell and shattered
- The earth with gold?
- No lights are over the mesa,
- The wind is hard and wild,
- I stand at the darkened window
- And cry like a child.
Dusk in War Time
- A HALF-HOUR more and you will lean
- To gather me close in the old sweet way--
- But oh, to the woman over the sea
- Who will come at the close of day?
- A half-hour more and I will hear
- The key in the latch and the strong quick tread--
- But oh, the woman over the sea
- Waiting at dusk for one who is dead!
Spring in War Time
- I FEEL the Spring far off, far off,
- The faint far scent of bud and leaf--
- Oh how can Spring take heart to come
- To a world in grief,
- Deep grief?
- The sun turns north, the days grow long,
- Later the evening star grows bright--
- How can the daylight linger on
- For men to fight,
- Still fight?
- The grass is waking in the ground,
- Soon it will rise and blow in waves--
- How can it have the heart to sway
- Over the graves,
- New graves?
- Under the boughs where lovers walked
- The apple-blooms will shed their breath--
- But what of all the lovers now
- Parted by death,
- Gray Death?
While I May
- WIND and hail and veering rain,
- Driven mist that veils the day,
- Soul's distress and body's pain,
- I would bear you while I may.
- I would love you if I might,
- For so soon my life will be
- Buried in a lasting night,
- Even pain denied to me.
Debt
- WHAT do I owe to you
- Who loved me deep and long?
- You never gave my spirit wings
- Or gave my heart a song.
- But oh, to him I loved
- Who loved me not at all,
- I owe the little open gate
- That led thru heaven's wall.
From the North
- THE northern woods are delicately sweet,
- The lake is folded softly by the shore,
- But I am restless for the subway's roar,
- The thunder and the hurrying of feet.
- I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat
- Against the image of the tower that bore
- Me high aloft, as if thru heaven's door
- I watched the world from God's unshaken seat.
- I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
- The tunnel's strong hot breath of powdered steel;
- But at the ferries I should leave the tense
- Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
- One among many who are thrilled to feel
- The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.
The Lights of New York
- THE lightning spun your garment for the night
- Of silver filaments with fire shot thru,
- A broidery of lamps that lit for you
- The steadfast splendor of enduring light.
- The moon drifts dimly in the heaven's height,
- Watching with wonder how the earth she knew
- That lay so long wrapped deep in dark and dew,
- Should wear upon her breast a star so white.
- The festivals of Babylon were dark
- With flaring flambeaux that the wind blew down;
- The Saturnalia were a wild boy's lark
- With rain-quenched torches dripping thru the town--
- But you have found a god and filched from him
- A fire that neither wind nor rain can dim.
Sea Longing
- A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
- Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
- The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
- With the old murmur, long and musical;
- The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
- And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,--
- Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
- For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
- I would that I were there and over me
- The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
- Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,--
- Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
- Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
- Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.
The River
- I CAME from the sunny valleys
- And sought for the open sea,
- For I thought in its gray expanses
- My peace would come to me.
- I came at last to the ocean
- And found it wild and black,
- And I cried to the windless valleys,
- "Be kind and take me back!"
- But the thirsty tide ran inland,
- And the salt waves drank of me,
- And I who was fresh as the rainfall
- Am bitter as the sea.
Leaves
- ONE by one, like leaves from a tree,
- All my faiths have forsaken me;
- But the stars above my head
- Burn in white and delicate red,
- And beneath my feet the earth
- Brings the sturdy grass to birth.
- I who was content to be
- But a silken-singing tree,
- But a rustle of delight
- In the wistful heart of night--
- I have lost the leaves that knew
- Touch of rain and weight of dew.
- Blinded by a leafy crown
- I looked neither up nor down--
- But the little leaves that die
- Have left me room to see the sky;
- Now for the first time I know
- Stars above and earth below.
The Answer
- WHEN I go back to earth
- And all my joyous body
- Puts off the red and white
- That once had been so proud,
- If men should pass above
- With false and feeble pity,
- My dust will find a voice
- To answer them aloud:
- "Be still, I am content,
- Take back your poor compassion,
- Joy was a flame in me
- Too steady to destroy;
- Lithe as a bending reed
- Loving the storm that sways her--
- I found more joy in sorrow
- Than you could find in joy."
On to the next poem.
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