Sara Teasdale – Fourteen Lines

I Am the Pool of Blue

I saw above a sea of hills
A solitary planet shine
And there was no one, near or far,
To keep the world from being mine.

Sara Teasdale, Autumn Dusk

Peace

by Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933)

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold

Christmas Carol

By Sara Teasdale

The kings they came from out the south,

All dressed in ermine fine;

They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,

And gifts of precious wine.

The shepherds came from out the north,

Their coats were brown and old;

They brought Him little new-born lambs—

They had not any gold.

The wise men came from out the east,

And they were wrapped in white;

The star that led them all the way

Did glorify the night.

The angels came from heaven high,

And they were clad with wings;

And lo, they brought a joyful song

The host of heaven sings.

The kings they knocked upon the door,

The wise men entered in,

The shepherds followed after them

To hear the song begin.

The angels sang through all the night

Until the rising sun,

But little Jesus fell asleep

Before the song was done.

To Know The Dark, Go Dark

You think winter will never end, and then, when you don’t expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light.
Wendell Berry

To Know The Dark

by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

A Winter Bluejay

by Sara Teasdale

Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced,
Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.
Across the lake the skaters
Flew to and fro,
With sharp turns weaving
A frail invisible net.
In ecstasy the earth
Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstasy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstasy we laughed
Drinking the wine of love.
Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
“Oh look!”
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty?

Not One Would Mind

Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be far.
Sara Teasdale

The Look

By Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,

Robin in the fall,

But Colin only looked at me

And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,

Robin’s lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin’s eyes

Haunts me night and day.

There Will Come Soft Rains

by Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Hidden In You

Cover me over, clover,
Cover me over, grass;
The mellow day is over
And there is night to pass.

Green arms about my head,
Green fingers on my hands,
Earth has no quieter bed
In all her quiet lands.

Richard Eberhart – Song

February Poem

by Sara Teasdale

They spoke of him I love
With cruel words and gay;
My lips kept silent guard
On all I could not say.

I heard, and down the street
The lonely trees in the square
Stood in the winter wind
Patient and bare.

I heard . . . oh voiceless trees
Under the wind, I knew
The eager terrible spring
Hidden in you.

The Groundhog

By Richard Eberhart

In June, amid the golden fields,

I saw a groundhog lying dead.

Dead lay he; my senses shook,

And mind outshot our naked frailty.

There lowly in the vigorous summer

His form began its senseless change,

And made my senses waver dim

Seeing nature ferocious in him.

Inspecting close his maggots’ might

And seething cauldron of his being,

Half with loathing, half with a strange love,

I poked him with an angry stick.

The fever arose, became a flame

And Vigour circumscribed the skies,

Immense energy in the sun,

And through my frame a sunless trembling.

My stick had done nor good nor harm.

Then stood I silent in the day

Watching the object, as before;

And kept my reverence for knowledge

Trying for control, to be still,

To quell the passion of the blood;

Until I had bent down on my knees

Praying for joy in the sight of decay.

And so I left; and I returned

In Autumn strict of eye, to see

The sap gone out of the groundhog,

But the bony sodden hulk remained.

But the year had lost its meaning,

And in intellectual chains

I lost both love and loathing,

Mured up in the wall of wisdom.

Another summer took the fields again

Massive and burning, full of life,

But when I chanced upon the spot

There was only a little hair left,

And bones bleaching in the sunlight

Beautiful as architecture;

I watched them like a geometer,

And cut a walking stick from a birch.

It has been three years, now.

There is no sign of the groundhog.

I stood there in the whirling summer,

My hand capped a withered heart,

And thought of China and of Greece,

Of Alexander in his tent;

Of Montaigne in his tower,

Of Saint Theresa in her wild lament.

My Eyes Caught Light From Yours

September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,

Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence

Under a moon waning and worn, broken,

Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,

Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them.

It is no great mystery to whom Teasdale was dedicating the sonnet below. Teasdale married Ernst Filsinger in 1914 and she would receive the most critical acclaim and publishing success during her 15 year marriage to him. Teasdale was a romantic and at least for a while E was her muse, but in time they drifted apart, her physical and mental health declined and the two of them divorced in 1929. She lived largely as an invalid and a recluse until her death in 1933.

We have been experiencing beautiful summer like days throughout September, with the warmth lingering a bit longer before the seriousness of fall and winter begin. As a young boy I loved this time of year as it seemed like there were a plethora of flying insects making their last dash before the first frost, and endless possibilities to chase and temporarily capture them with a net and empty mayonnaise jar with nail holes in the top so that I might study them a bit before letting them go. Do you have particular memories of warm fall days from your childhood?

To E

by Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

The door was opened and I saw you there
And for the first time heard you speak my name.
Then like the sun your sweetness overcame
My shy and shadowy mood; I was aware
That joy was hidden in your happy hair,
And that for you love held no hint of shame;
My eyes caught light from yours, within whose flame
Humor and passion have an equal share.

How many times since then have I not seen
Your great eyes widen when you talk of love,
And darken slowly with a fair desire;
How many times since then your soul has been
Clear to my gaze as curving skies above,
Wearing like them a raiment made of fire.

It Sings In Me

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
Sara Teasdale

April

by Sara Teasdale

The roofs are shining from the rain.
The sparrows tritter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.

Sara Teasdale was born in St. Louis into a wealthy family. As a young woman she spent time in Chicago’s literary circles, including a friendship with Harriet Monroe through whom she met and dated the poet Vachel Lindsay. Teasdale rejected Lindsay’s marriage proposals, an itinerant poet whom may have lacked the income to be a suitable partner in her eyes, but may have been a better match intellectually. Instead she married Ernst Filsinger in 1914 and moved to New York City. Teasdale published several collections of classical poetry and edited several other anthologies. Though her work is often overlooked today, she was popular with both critics and readers in her day. Following her divorce in 1929, her health declined rapidly. Teasdale became an invalid and died following a bout with pneumonia by an overdose of barbiturates.

There is a sadness that runs through much of Teasdale’s poetry, as if life just didn’t quite measure up to her hopes and dreams. Its hard to know if it was maniac depression or something darker that had blotted out her joy, but Teasdale seemed to run out of steam as the economic depression of the 1930’s took hold and the life of privilege and wealth that she had enjoyed started to feel out of reach. In her bob hair cut, and beautiful smile, it would be interesting to know the back story to the last two lines of the sonnet below, but from my perspective the beauty in her words will never be dull.

Sonnet

by Sara Teasdale

I saw a ship sail forth at evening time;
Her prow was gilded by the western fire,
And all her rigging one vast golden lyre,
For winds to play on to the ocean’s rhyme
Of wave on wave forever singing low.
She floated on a web of burnished gold,
And in such light as praying men behold
Cling round a vision, were her sails aglow.
I saw her come again when dawn was grey,
Her wonder faded and her splendor dead — ‘
She whom I loved once had upon her way
A light most like the sunset. Now ’tis sped.
And this is saddest — what seemed wondrous fair
Are now but straight pale lips, and dull gold hair.

Spring Is Fresh And Fearless

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”

— Margaret Atwood

May Night

by Sara Teasdale

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing–
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

After several cold weeks, and taunting frosts, spring is finally busting out. Just when we thought we would never turn off our furnaces, the forecast has a high that starts with an 8 in it next week. Lilacs are scenting Minnesota air and a seemingly infinite variation of green abound everywhere I look.

Lilacs are magic. They are for Minnesota gardeners what might constitute as an aphrodisiac, inspiring more than a few to take a bath, scrub the dirt out from underneath their fingernails and get a hair cut. Lilacs and crab apple blossoms lead directly to lily’s of the valley, and from there it feels like almost anything’s still possible this summer. Almost anything, even baseball.

Here’s a little ditty I wrote this week, reminding myself not to take Spring so seriously this year…. Lighten up. It’s Spring!

Maianthemum

by T. A. Fry

Lily of the valley’s dainty bells,
Faintly ring and cast their spell,
Peonies and iris are on their way.
It’s worth the wait, to wait for May.

Spring is here, go look about!
The rains in May make mushrooms sprout.
Try peering at the forest floor,
For trillium and elves are more than lore.

Look down, then up, take a step,
Drink in the scent the lilacs wept.
And if good fortune brings morels,
Leave some for our friends – the elves.

Of Darkness and Of Hurtling Sound

The Staircase of Notre Dame, Paris

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

As one who, groping in a narrow stair,
Hath a strong sound of bells upon his ears,
Which, being at a distance off, appears
Quite close to him because of the pent air:
So with this France. She stumbles file and square
Darkling and without space for breath: each one
Who hears the thunder says: “It shall anon
Be in among her ranks to scatter her.”
This may be; and it may be that the storm
Is spent in rain upon the unscathed seas,
Or wasteth other countries ere it die:
Till she,—having climbed always through the swarm
Of darkness and of hurtling sound,—from these
Shall step forth on the light in a still sky.

Paris In Spring

by Sara Teasdale

The city’s all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind’s a-blowing,
The little shower is done.
But the rain-drops still are clinging
And falling one by one —
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time has begun.

I know the Bois is twinkling
In a sort of hazy sheen,
And down the Champs the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.

The sun’s gone in, the sparkle’s dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time’s come again.

We Have The World To Roam

cabaret — Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles in Cabaret

“Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we donʼt need.” (A Single Man)

Christopher Isherwood

Morning Song

Sara Teasdale, 1884 – 1933

A diamond of a morning
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.

O white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free.

Bob Fosse’s Broadway show and film Cabaret had its birth place in Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel Goodbye To Berlin, which is often published with other stories under the name Berlin Stories. As a writer, Isherwood earned far more over his lifetime writing plays and for Hollywood movies than for his novels. What is interesting is the multiple stage and movie adaptations of Goodbye To Berlin were created by other people, who found inspiration in Isherwood’s work. The success of the stage version of Cabaret continues to generate income for his estate. Isherwood loosely modeled Sally Bowles from a real life character Jean Ross, but the stage and movie depictions would evolve to have little connection to the real life Ross. Isherwood was quoted towards the end of his life that he could barely remember Jean Ross, Sally Bowles a true creation of Isherwood’s imagination.

Isherwood wrote Berlin stories at a time when he and Auden were frequent traveling companions. They were both gay and Berlin offered intellectual and physical stimulation that suited their adventurous natures. Isherwood’s writing is viewed by some as the beginning of modern gay story telling in literature and the theater. Isherwood left Berlin and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Isherwood was not a poet but he was a brilliant romantic. His greatest creation was his own avant-garde life, which reads like fiction, complete with evading authorities, on the run across Europe before WWII, his lover ultimately being arrested by the Nazi’s, seducing the great love of his life who was 30 years his junior in his late 40’s, immersing himself in India’s culture, his translation of the Bhagavad Gita with Swami Prabhavananda is considered the first fluid translation in English. Isherwood was a bit misogynistic, an anti-Semite, a hypochondriac, but also a kind and gentle human being. Isherwood lived a big life and left an iconic character in Sally Bowles to keep on singing.

Poem

by W. H. Auden

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say;
Reopened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey;

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
“All the arm-chair philosopher’s are false,
To love another adds to the confusion,
The song of pity is the Devil’s waltz.”

And bowed to fate, and was successful so
That soon he was the king of all the creatures:
Yet, shaking in an autumn nightmare, saw

Approaching down an empty corridor,
A figure with his own distorted features
That wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.