Sara Teasdale

• About Sara Teasdale

Poems featured on The Gladdest Thing

Those Who Love

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile, inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

— Sara Teasdale 

The Kiss

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he love me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.

— Sara Teasdale

In The Metropolitan Museum

Inside the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently.
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.

The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment’s space,
And through the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.

Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you leaned
To find the present with a kiss.

— Sara Teasdale

A Prayer

Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though a shouting wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,
Oh, let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.

— Sara Teasdale

I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in the rushing wind.

— Sara Teasdale

On the Sussex Downs

Over the downs there were birds flying,
Far off glittered the sea,
And toward the north the weald of Sussex
Lay like a kingdom under me.

I was happier than the larks
That nest on the downs and sing to the sky,
Over the downs the birds flying
Were not so happy as I.

It was not you, though you were near,
Though you were good to hear and see,
It was not earth, it was not heaven
It was myself that sang in me.

— Sara Teasdale