In “Summer Night, Riverside,” Sara Teasdale’s speaker remembers warm nights spent with a lover in a park beside the Hudson. The scene is lush and dreamy: the river wears its lights “like golden spangles / Glinting on black satin,” and the couple sits under a blooming tree while kisses and falling blossoms tangle in her hair. The memory is sensuous but also fragile, held just out of reach. Then the poem shifts to the present: June has come back, the tree is blooming again, and the speaker is far off. Instead of returning to the old happiness, she wonders what girl will go home tonight and shake this year’s blossoms from her hair. The mood is wistful and quietly bittersweet—full of beauty, but also of time passing and love repeating for someone else.
Summer Night, Riverside — Summary
In the wild soft summer darkness How many and many a night we two together Sat in the park and watched the Hudson Wearing her lights like golden spangles Glinting on black satin. The rail along the curving pathway Was low in a happy place to let us cross, And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom Sheltered us While your kisses and the flowers, Falling, falling, Tangled my hair. . . .
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off In the fragrant darkness The tree is tremulous again with bloom For June comes back.
To-night what girl When she goes home, Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils ?