Sara Teasdale’s speaker addresses someone she was once close to, saying that this person loved her deeply long ago but was too young and proud to recognize it. She looks back not with anger but with sadness and tenderness. The image of red leaves blown by the wind captures how life has scattered them: they are now far apart and rarely meet. Yet when she hears this person speak, she can still sense the love they keep hidden. There is a quiet confidence in the line “I know your secret, my dear, my dear.” The secret is that this love never died, even though time and distance have come between them. The repeated “my dear” makes the tone feel intimate rather than bitter. The mood is wistful and autumnal, full of longing for what could have been.
"Did You Never Know?" — Summary
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me-- That your love would never lessen and never go? You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted, You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year-- Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking, I know your secret, my dear, my dear.