There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street-- Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were a little dreamy child Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see, The people on the street look up at us All envious. We are a king and queen, Our royal carriage is a motor bus, We watch our subjects with a haughty joy. . . .
How still you are! Have you been hard at work And are you tired to-night? It is so long Since I have seen you -- four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts Like early flowers in an April meadow, And I must give them to you, all of them, Before they fade. The people I have met, The play I saw, the trivial, shifting things That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows That hurry, gesturing along a wall, Haunting or gay -- and yet they all grow real And take their proper size here in my heart When you have seen them. . . . There's the Plaza now, A lake of light! To-night it almost seems That all the lights are gathered in your eyes, Drawn somehow toward you. See the open park Lying below us with a million lamps Scattered in wise disorder like the stars.
We look down on them as God must look down On constellations floating under Him Tangled in clouds. . . . Come, then, and let us walk Since we have reached the park. It is our garden, All black and blossomless this winter night, But we bring April with us, you and I;
We set the whole world on the trail of spring.
I think that every path we ever took Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire, Delicate gold that only fairies see.
When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks And come out on the drowsy park, they look Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see, Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance About it in a windy ring and make A circle round it only they can cross When they come back again!" . . . Look at the lake-- Do you remember how we watched the swans That night in late October while they slept?
Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now The lake bears only thin reflected lights That shake a little. How I long to take One from the cold black water -- new-made gold To give you in your hand! And see, and see, There is a star, deep in the lake, a star!
Oh, dimmer than a pearl -- if you stoop down Your hand could almost reach it up to me. . . .
There was a new frail yellow moon to-night-- I wish you could have had it for a cup With stars like dew to fill it to the brim. . . .
How cold it is! Even the lights are cold;
They have put shawls of fog around them, see!
What if the air should grow so dimly white That we would lose our way along the paths Made new by walls of moving mist receding The more we follow. . . . What a silver night!
That was our bench the time you said to me The long new poem -- but how different now, How eerie with the curtain of the fog Making it strange to all the friendly trees!
There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
Walk on a little, let me stand here watching To see you, too, grown strange to me and far. . . .
I used to wonder how the park would be If one night we could have it all alone-- No lovers with close arm-encircled waists To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
And now we have it! Every wish comes true!
We are alone now in a fleecy world;
Even the stars have gone. We two alone!
[End of Love Songs.]
{As an item of interest to the reader, the following, which was at the end of this edition, is included.
Only the advertisement for the same author is included}.
By the same author Rivers to the Sea
"There is hardly another American woman-poet whose poetry is generally known and loved like that of Sara Teasdale. `Rivers to the Sea', her latest volume of lyrics, possesses the delicacy of imagery, the inward illumination, the high vision that characterize the poetry that will endure the test of time." -- `Review of Reviews'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is a book of sheer delight. . . . Her touch turns everything to song." -- Edward J. Wheeler, in `Current Opinion'.
"Sara Teasdale's lyrics have the clarity, the precision, the grace and fragrance of flowers." -- Harriet Monroe, in `Poetry'.
"Sara Teasdale has a genius for the song, for the perfect lyric, in which the words seem to have fallen into place without art or effort."
-- Louis Untermeyer, in `The Chicago Evening Post'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the best book of pure lyrics that has appeared in English since A. E. Housman's `A Shropshire Lad'."
-- William Marion Reedy, in `The Mirror'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the most beautiful book of pure lyrics that has come to my hand in years." -- `Los Angeles Graphic'.
"Sara Teasdale sings about love better than any other contemporary American poet." -- `The Boston Transcript'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the most charming volume of poetry that has appeared on either side of the Atlantic in a score of years." -- `St. Louis Republic'.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933):
Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended a school that was founded by the grandfather of another great poet from St. Louis-- T. S. Eliot. She later associated herself more with New York City.
Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907), [at least one poem in the current volume, "Faults", is from this book,] but "Helen of Troy" (1911) was the true launch of her career, followed by "Rivers to the Sea" (1915), "Love Songs" (1917), "Flame and Shadow" (1920) and more. Her final volume, "Strange Victory", is considered by many to be predictive of her suicide in 1933.
