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Sara Teasdale
We walked in the dew, in the drowsy starlight
To the sleepless, sleepy sound
Of insects singing in the low sea-meadows
For miles and miles around;
With a wheel and a whirr the resistless rhythm
Trembled incessantly;
Antares was red in the sky before us,
And behind us, the blackness of the sea.
In the mountains, high up in the grasslands
Where mist swirls; where every blade of grass
Is wet with dew –
Tread softly, for you are trampling upon beads of love.
Love erupts slowly, the moist soil swells –
As you watch, it surges, drips
Drop by drop. Press your face onto the soil -
On your nose, your lips, your tongue
Love spreads into your blood.
Love erupts at the tips of your fingers, my love!
Caress my face, touch my lips!
Run your fingers over my ravaged face
Over my ageing skin; perhaps it will glow again
At your touch!
Love spurts, my dear, red beads of blood
As you tear into me in ecstasy!
Early summer occurs
in a calamity of falling
young
petals, birds, the
bright souls of birds.
A small dead bird
is at my feet,
tree looms
over this soul-ossuary
dignifying the small
body with her dark needles,
bird-map-lost
Obliterate—
A small mourning
shadow passes over grass,
just long enough to hide the living bird,
Are the fallen stars
Returning up the sky?-
The dews on the grass.
For all the grief I have given with words
May now a few clear flowers blow,
In the dust, and the heat, and the silence of birds,
Where the lonely go.
For the thing unsaid that heart asked of me
Be a dark, cool water calling--calling
To the footsore, benighted, solitary,
When the shadows are falling.
O, be beauty for all my blindness,
A moon in the air where the weary wend,
And dews burdened with loving-kindness
In the dark of the end.
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,
And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the young alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, come flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.
The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.
Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.
As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;
As dawn leaves the dry grass bright
And the tangled weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem
On each of their seeds;
So has your love, my lover,
Fresh as the dawn,
Made me a shining road
To travel on,
Set every common sight
Of tree or stone
Delicately alight
For me alone.
KINGS' wares; and dreams; and April dusks
Out in the golden dew,
One sighing in a secret lane;—
These wrought the look of you.
God made you out of lonely things;
To set you at our door,
He tumbled down into the dark
A hundred towns or more.
I who cut patterns,
As every soul must do,
Fret myself with longing
For themes that are new.
All these fashions
Were moulded years gone by,
And, like the mask of politics,
Are coloured with a lie.
Even the treasured love motif,
This thing of you and me,
It must so carefully be cut
To keep us bound, yet free.
And death, the sombre casket
Of centuries of song,
And war, and rivalries and creeds,
These we have used too long.
The dew is on the grasses, dear,
The blush is on the rose.
And swift across our dial-youth,
A shifting shadow goes.
The primrose moments, lush with bliss,
Exhale and fade away,
Life may renew the Autumn time,
But nevermore the May!
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;
To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;
To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak
Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;
To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;
To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;
It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.
We know it is not true, but it is sweet--
The poem with this music is complete.