Sara Teasdale Quotes

95 Sourced Quotes

My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry
Against the fate that made men love my mouth
And left their spirits all too deaf to hear
The little songs that echoed through my soul.
I have no anger now. The dreams are done;
Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see
Aught but my body's fairness, till the end,
In all the islands set in all the seas,
And all the lands that lie beneath the sun,
Till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep,
Men's lives shall waste with longing after me,
For I shall be the sum of their desire,
The whole of beauty, never seen again.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy.

Sara Teasdale
A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Sara Teasdale
Into my heart's treasury I slipped a coin That Time cannot take Nor a thief purloin- O better than the minting Of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
How should they know that Sappho lived and died
Faithful to love, not faithful to the lover,
Never transfused and lost in what she loved,
Never so wholly loving nor at peace.

Sara Teasdale
Faults They came to tell your faults to me, They named them over one by one; I laughed aloud when they were done, I knew them all so well before,— Oh, they were blind, too blind to see Your faults had made me love you more.

Sara Teasdale
Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
Shall I be faithless to myself
Or to you?

Sara Teasdale
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, broken, Tired with summer.

Sara Teasdale
I saw a star slide down the sky Blinding the north as it went by Too buring and too quick to hold Too lovely to be bought or sold Good only to make wishes on And then forever to be gone

Sara Teasdale
Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more
To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,
It is that thou hast made my life too sweet
To hold the added sweetness of a song.
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.

Sara Teasdale
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone. Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea — We two will pass through death and ages lengthen Before you hear that sound again with me.

Sara Teasdale
Oh to be free of myself, With nothing left to remember, To have my heart as bare As a tree in December; Resting, as a tree rests After its leaves are gone, Waiting no more for a rain at night Nor for the red at dawn.

Sara Teasdale
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired.

Sara Teasdale
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Sara Teasdale
But oh, to him I loved
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the little open gate
That led thru heaven's wall.

Sara Teasdale
And as I played, a child came thro' the gate,
A boy who looked at me without a word,
As tho' he saw stretch far behind my head
Long lines of radiant angels, row on row.
That day we spoke a little, timidly,
And after that I never heard the voice
That sang so many songs for love of me.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
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?

Sara Teasdale
When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafey trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and cold hearted Than you are now

Sara Teasdale
But you I never understood,
Your spirit's secret hides like gold
Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
The world is tired, the year is old,
The faded leaves are glad to die.

Sara Teasdale
Stars over snow
And in the west a planet
Swinging below a star —
Look for a lovely thing and you will find it,
It is not far —
It never will be far.

Sara Teasdale
I may not speak till Eros' torch is dim,
The god is bitter and will have it so.

Sara Teasdale
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.

Sara Teasdale
I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night.

Sara Teasdale