Am meisten gelesen ▸
Sara Teasdale
Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,
Bear witness for me that I loved my life,
All things that hurt me and all things that healed,
And that I swore to it this day in March,
Here at the edge of this new-broken field.
You only knew me, tell them I was glad
For every hour since my hour of birth,
And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,
The last complete reunion with the earth.
When gray clouds break on southern skies
And winds of March begin to blow,
Our fancies run to Summer sighs,
That whisper and delight us so.
For in this stormy month of winds
The first new pulse of life is felt,
When Spring with all her sweets begins
Where Winter's ice and snow have dwelt.
The bluebird carols out his note,
A prelude to the country 'round
Of chimes, a few more days remote,
To which the forest will resound.
The plowman's song, the forest chime.
The upturned sod, the country scene,
Bespeak a resurrection time
In air, sky, and sprouting green.
" Mark time in front ! Rear fours cover ! Company — halt !
Order arms! Stand at — ease! Stand easy." A sudden hush:
And then the talk began with a mighty rush —
" You weren't ever in step — The sergeant. — It wasn't my fault-
Well, the Lord be praised at least for a ten minutes' halt."
We sat on a gate and watched them easing and shifting ;
Out of the distance a faint, keen breath came drifting,
From the sea behind the hills, and the hedges were salt.
Where do you halt now ? Under what hedge do you lie ?
Where the tall poplars are fringing the white French roads?
And smoke I have not seen discolours the foreign sky ?
Is the company resting there as we rested together
Black with a batter of mud
Stippled with silvery pools
Stands the pavement at the street-end;
And the gutter snow is gone
From cobble and runnelling curb;
And no longer the ramping wind
Is rattling the rusty signs;
And moted and soft and misty
Hangs the sunlight over the cross-streets,
And the home-bound crowds of the city
Walk in a flood of gold.
And suddenly out of the dusk
There comes the ancient question:
Can it be that I have lived
In earlier worlds unknown?
Or is it that somewhere deep