Sara Teasdale’s “Words for an Old Air” addresses someone whose heart has been locked away, and warns even Beauty not to try to release it. The heart is “bound tightly,” caught in a snare tied by a “bleeding hand”—an image of someone wounded while making the knot. The speaker’s tone is bitter and protective: the binding was not casual, but born from having asked too long for something another person refused to give. That denial, the poem suggests, has only made the heart more guarded. Beauty may deride the knot or test its strength, but the speaker insists it will hold. The mood is restrained and sorrowful, with an edge of defiance. Rather than celebrating love’s power, the poem leaves us with a heart so hurt that even beauty, usually irresistible, cannot open it.
Words for an Old Air — Summary
Your heart is bound tightly, let Beauty beware, It is not hers to set Free from the snare. Tell her a bleeding hand Bound it and tied it, Tell her the knot will stand Though she deride it; One who withheld so long All that you yearned to take, Has made a snare too strong For Beauty’s self to break.