Sara Teasdale Quotes

95 Sourced Quotes

My soul is a dark ploughed field In the cold rain; My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain.

Sara Teasdale
But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

Sara Teasdale
What we have never had, remains; It is the things we have that go.

Sara Teasdale
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, The world's heart breaks beneath its wars,All things are changed, save in the east,The faithful beauty of the stars.

Sara Teasdale
Joy was a flame in me Too steady to destroy. Lithe as a bending reed, Loving the storm that sways her

Sara Teasdale
Take love when love is given, But never think to find it A sure escape from sorrow Or a complete repose.

Sara Teasdale
There in the windy flood of morning Longing lifted its weight from me, Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering, Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

Sara Teasdale
My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation. It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem.... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.

Sara Teasdale
Down the hill I went, and then, I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy

Sara Teasdale
I have grown weary of the winds of heaven.
I will not be a reed to hold the sound
Of whatsoever breath the gods may blow,
Turning my torment into music for them.
They gave me life; the gift was bountiful,
I lived with the swift singing strength of fire,
Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel —
Beauty in all things and in every hour.
The gods have given life — I gave them song;
The debt is paid and now I turn to go.

Sara Teasdale
The window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.

Sara Teasdale
I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,—
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

Sara Teasdale
I make the most of all that comes,
The least of all that goes.

Sara Teasdale
All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.

Sara Teasdale
It is enough for me by day To walk the same bright earth with him; Enough that over us by night The same great roof of stars is dim. I do not hope to bind the wind Or set a fetter on the sea — It is enough to feel his love Blow by like music over me.

Sara Teasdale
Until I lose my soul and lie Blind to the beauty of the earth, Deaf though shouting wind goes by, Dumb in a storm of mirth; Until my heart is quenched at length And I have left the land of men, Oh, let me love with all my strength Careless if I am loved again.

Sara Teasdale
My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain -
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten -
After the stillness, will spring come again?

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
In the dawn clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
Giving light, dying.

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

Sara Teasdale
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.

Sara Teasdale
O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.

Sara Teasdale
It was not you, though you were near,
Though you were good to hear and see,
It was not earth, it was not heaven
It was myself that sang in me.

Sara Teasdale
For I shall learn from flower and leaf, That color every drop they hold, To change the lifeless wine of grief To living gold.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
Oh, better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.

Sara Teasdale
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

Sara Teasdale
The leaves fall patiently
Nothing remembers or grieves
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of leaves.

Sara Teasdale
The poet should try to give his poem the quiet swiftness of flame, so that the reader will feel and not think while he is reading. But the thinking will come afterwards.

Sara Teasdale
Love in my heart is a cry forever Lost as the swallow's flight, Seeking for you and never, never Stilled by the stars at night

Sara Teasdale