Sara Teasdale - Flame and Shadow (1920)

18 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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
I try to catch at many a tune
Like petals of light fallen from the moon,
Broken and bright on a dark lagoon, But they float away — for who can hold
Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

Sara Teasdale
If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.

Sara Teasdale
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten —
These were the same for Sappho as for me. Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.

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
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
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
It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.

Sara Teasdale
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled; With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.

Sara Teasdale
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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

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

Sara Teasdale