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Sara Teasdale
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.
Happier than green-kirtled apple-trees
Waving their soft-rimmed fans of light
And taking the morning mist, in quick breaths,
You sit in the woven meditation and surprise
Of a morning uncovering its wind-wreathed head.
And yet within the light stillness of your soul
Dream-heavy guards sleep uneasily
Over the body of your last slain sorrow.
She had a garden full of herbs.
And many another pleasant thing.
Like pink round asters in the fall.
Blue flags, white flags a week in spring.
Housewives ran in each hour or so.
For sprigs of thyme, mint, parsley too;
For pans to borrow, or some meal;
She was the kindest thing they knew.
Tall, and half slender, slightly grey.
With gay, thin lips, eyes flower-clear.
She bragged her stock was Puritan;
Her usual mood was Cavalier.
Ample of deed; clipped, warm of speech.
Each day in some large-flowered gown.
She went the rounds to sad, to sick
Saint, humorist to the faded town.
Is it because Spring now is come
That my heart leaps in its bed of dust?
Is it with sorrow or strange pleasure
To watch the green time's gathering treasure?
Or is there some too sharp distaste
In all this quivering green and gold?
Something that makes bare boughs yet barer,
And the eye's pure delight the rarer?
Not that the new found Spring is sour....
The blossom swings on the cherry branch,
From Wear to Thames I have seen this greenness
Cover the six-months-winter meanness.
And windflowers and yellow gillyflowers
Pierce the astonished earth with light:
And most-loved wallflower's bloody petal
Shakes over that long frosty battle.
Needle, you make me remember things . .
A path through a wood that ran like wine,
A turn, and the bubbling smell that clings
Close as breath to the lips of springs
Where the sun is sprinkled fine.
Needle, you have a path to run
Where never the boughs of trees have met
And never has seeped the rain of the sun;
But long is the way you have just begun . .
Needle, you make me forget.
Nor skin nor hide nor fleece
Shall cover you,
Nor curtain of crimson nor fine
Shelter of cedar-wood be over you,
Nor the fir-tree
Nor the pine.
Nor sight of whin nor gorse
Nor river-yew,
Nor fragrance of flowering bush,
Nor wailing of reed-bird to waken you,
Nor of linnet,
Nor of thrush.
Nor word nor touch nor sight
Of lover, you
Shall long through the night but for this:
The roll of the full tide to cover you
My name used to be in the papers daily
As having dined somewhere,
Or traveled somewhere,
Or rented a house in Paris,
Where I entertained the nobility.
I was forever eating or traveling,
Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.
Now I am here to do honor
To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.
No one cares now where I dined,
Or lived, or whom I entertained,
Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.
Dear, in wintry weather,
How close we crept together !
The storms, with all their thunder,
Could not our fond hands sunder.
No sorrow followed after
Cold words or scornful laughter.
How close we crept together,
Through all the wintry weather !
Dear, when each rose uncurled
To its sweet narrow world,
You went to cull its glory ;
You would not hear my story,
Too sweet the birds were singing,
Too fair the buds were swinging.
If I should come or go
You did not care to know.
SO shuts the marigold her leaves
At the departure of the sun;
So from the honeysuckle sheaves
The bee goes when the day is done;
So sits the turtle when she is but one,
And so all woe, as I since she is gone.
To some few birds kind Nature hath
Made all the summer as one day:
Which once enjoy'd, cold winter's wrath
As night they sleeping pass away.
Those happy creatures are, that know not yet
The pain to be deprived or to forget.
I oft have heard men say there be
Some that with confidence profess
The helpful Art of Memory:
But could they teach Forgetfulness,