Sara Teasdale imagines songwriting as an act born from private anguish. The speaker’s heart cries “like a beaten child” all night, a pain no one sees, and she has no choice but to take those raw cries and “thread them into a song.” The poem names two moments of crying—at midnight and at dawn—then returns to the image of the beaten child, emphasizing that this suffering stayed hidden: “no one ever knew.” The mood is lonely and sorrowful but also quietly resolute. Making the song doesn’t erase the hurt; it turns it into something the speaker must offer. Addressing life itself, she feels indebted, as if she is bound to serve by converting grief into music. The final lines are heavy with the cost of that task: the debt is terrible because it must be paid in song.
Song Making — Summary
My heart cried like a beaten child Ceaselessly all night long; I had to take my own cries And thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnight And one when the first cock crew-- My heart was like a beaten child, But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debt And I must serve you long-- But oh, the debt is terrible That must be paid in song.