Sara Teasdale’s speaker is in the northern woods, where the air is sweet and the lake lies softly against the shore, but the peace does not comfort her. She is restless and unable to sleep, haunted by memories of the city: the subway’s roar, the hurry of feet, and the view from a high tower that felt almost godlike. She longs to return to the tunnel’s hot, metallic breath and the tense dark air of the city. Yet the poem ends with movement outward—leaving that dark air behind on a ferry and feeling the first keen breath of the open sea. The mood is tense and full of longing for intensity rather than stillness.
From the North — Summary
The northern woods are delicately sweet, The lake is folded softly by the shore, But I am restless for the subway's roar, The thunder and the hurrying of feet. I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat Against the image of the tower that bore Me high aloft, as if thru heaven's door I watched the world from God's unshaken seat. I would go back and breathe with quickened sense The tunnel's strong hot breath of powdered steel; But at the ferries I should leave the tense Dark air behind, and I should mount and be One among many who are thrilled to feel The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.