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Sara Teasdale
I could snatch a day out of the late autumn
And set it trembling like forgotten springs,
There would be sharp blue skies with new leaves shining
And flying shadows cast by flying wings.
I could take the heavy wheel of the world and break it,
But we sit brooding while the ashes fall,
Cowering over an old fire that dwindles,
Waiting for nothing at all.
The Dawn's awake!
A flash of smoldering flame and fire
Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher,
O'er all the sky so gray, forlorn,
The torch of gold is borne.
The Dawn's awake!
The dawn of a thousand dreams and thrills.
And music singing in the hills
A paean of eternal spring
Voices the new awakening.
The Dawn's awake!
Whispers of pent-up harmonies,
With the mingled fragrance of the trees;
Faint snatches of half-forgotten song--
Fathers! torn and numb,--
The boon of light we craved, awaited long,
I shall return again; I shall return
To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes
At golden noon the forest fires burn,
Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies.
I shall return to loiter by the streams
That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses,
And realize once more my thousand dreams
Of waters rushing down the mountain passes.
I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife
Of village dances, dear delicious tunes
That stir the hidden depths of native life,
Stray melodies of dim remembered runes.
I shall return, I shall return again,
To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.
The shale and water thrown together so-so first of all,
Then a potter's hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping
the jug ; out of the mud a mouth and a handle ;
Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays
on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the
shale mix.
Dipped in glaze more fire plays on it till a molasses lava
runs in waves, rises and retreats, a varnish of
volcanoes.
Take it now; out of mud now here is a mouth and
handle; out of this now mothers will pour milk
and maple syrup and cider, vinegar, apple juice,
and sorghum.
There is nothing proud about this ; only one out of
many ; the potter's wheel slings them out and the
fires harden them hours and hours thousands and
I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite;
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drowned no more:
But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: Let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal.
Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am,
That my offences course it in a ring.
My thoughts are working like a busy flame,
Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring:
And when they once have perfected their draughts,
My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts.
My words take fire fro m my inflamed thoughts,
Which spit it forth like the Sicilian hill.
They vent their wares, and pass them with their faults,
And by their breathing ventilate the ill.
But words suffice not, where are lewd intentions:
My hands do join to finish the inventions.
My hands do join to finish the inventions:
And so my sins ascend three stories high,
As Babel grew, before there were dissentions.
Let ill deeds loiter not: for they supply
How know it from a Summer's Day?
Its Fervors are as firm --
And nothing in the Countenance
But scintillates the same --
Yet Birds examine it and flee --
And Vans without a name
Inspect the Admonition
And sunder as they came --
I kiss her wound
to turn it into light
or some great fire
though the gun could not
be got out
moth to moth
we discourse in letters of fire
still free
order in one hand
joy in the other
playing with her smoke
by the fireside
I only see a bright moon
in the clock
the sound of a cat’s foot
like the ground in flight
a little fire whispering up
the bat in the church
so light a wing to polish
the bone of the ear
found ourselves in eggs
silent together
we were simple
not knowing the way
found ourselves to go backward and forward
wild as the sea
it seemed like fire
upon every stroke
the crow made us
whole