My summons came across the endless spaces?
Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me
Now that I seek for thee in human faces;
Answer my prayer or set my spirit free
Again to drift along the starry places.
Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey’s painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
Who stumbled in before them when the fight
Had left him victor, with a victor’s right.
I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;
He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim,
And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might,
Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light
As a wan wraith’s beside a river’s rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see
And only she has hid her face away,
And yet I ween she loved him more than they,
And very fairly fashioned was her face.
Yet for Love’s shame and sweet humility,
She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.
To an Aeolian Harp
The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,
Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know,
As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song,
Unknown to him who sings, thro’ lips that live,
The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands
Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong
In sweeping sadness of the winds that give
Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.
To Erinna
Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,
Do you go sorrowing because of this
In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be
A silent music men have never heard,
A dream in all our souls that we may say:
“Her voice had all the rapture of the sea,
And all the clear cool quiver of a bird
Deep in a forest at the break of day”?
To Cleis
“I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,
Cleis, the beloved.”
Sapphic fragment.
When the dusk was wet with dew,
Cleis, did the muses nine
Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile
When she crooned to still your cries,
She, a muse in human guise,
Who forsook her lyre awhile?
Did you feel her wild heart beat?
Did the warmth of all the sun
Thro’ your little body run
When she kissed your hands and feet?
Did your fingers, babywise,
Touch her face and touch her hair,
Did you think your mother fair,
Could you bear her burning eyes?
Are the songs that soothed your fears
Vanished like a vanished flame,
Save the line where shines your name
Starlike down the graying years?
Cleis speaks no word to me,
For the land where she has gone
Lieth mute at dusk and dawn
Like a windless tideless sea.
Paris in Spring
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.
Madeira from the Sea
Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges
Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea;
Softly the dream grows awakening — shimmering white of a city,
Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms.
High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers,
Lost and forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep,
Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.
City Vignettes
I
Dawn
The greenish sky glows up in misty reds,
The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,
The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds,
And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.
II
Dusk
The city’s street, a roaring blackened stream
Walled in by granite, thro’ whose thousand eyes
A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam,
And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at Night
The street-lamps shine in a yellow line
Down the splashy, gleaming street,
And the rain is heard now loud now blurred
By the tread of homing feet.
By the Sea
Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.
To him love-making is an art,
And as a flutist plays a flute,
So does he play upon his heart
A music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine,
He would not have me answer him.
To hide my eyes within the night
I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam
Alternately with red and white.
My laughter smites upon my ears,
So one who cries and wakes from sleep
Knows not it is himself he hears.
What if my voice should let him know
The mocking words were all a sham,
And lips that laugh could tremble so?
What if I lost the power to lie,
And he should only hear his name
In one low, broken cry?
On the Death of Swinburne
He trod the earth but yesterday,
And now he treads the stars.
He left us in the April time
He praised so often in his rhyme,
He left the singing and the lyre and went his way.
He drew new music from our tongue,
A music subtly wrought,
And moulded words to his desire,
As wind doth mould a wave of fire;
From strangely fash
ioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.
I think the singing understands
That he who sang is still,
And Iseult cries that he is dead, —
Does not Dolores bow her head
And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?
New singing now the singer hears
To lyre and lute and harp;
Catullus waits to welcome him,
And thro’ the twilight sweet and dim,
Sappho’s forgotten songs are falling on his ears.
Triolets
I
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
(Written in a copy of “La Vita Nuova”. For M. C. S.)
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I’d never waste my time like this —
If you were Lady Beatrice
I’d woo and then demand a kiss,
Nor weep like Dante here, I ween,
If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine.
III
(Written in a copy of “The Poems of Sappho”.)
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago
Could never dream that over seas,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The wind would blow such songs as these —
I wonder now if she can know,
Beyond the dim Hesperides,
The girl who sang them long ago?
IV
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air —
All of my lost hopes seem
Dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
Going I know not where,
Dead leaves upon the stream
And dead leaves on the air.
Vox Corporis
The beast to the beast is calling,
And the soul bends down to wait;
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,
The white man calls his mate.
The beast to the beast is calling,
They rush through the twilight sweet,
But the soul is a wary hunter,
He will not let them meet.
A Ballad of Two Knights
Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, “My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head.”
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
“I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace.”
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair —
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I ween that each knight smiled.
Christmas Carol
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.
And Mary held the little child
And sat upon the ground;
She looked up, she looked down,
She looked all around.
The angels sang thro’ all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.
The Faery Forest
The faery forest glimmered
Beneath an ivory moon,
The silver grasses shimmered
Against a faery tune.
Beneath the silken silence
The crystal branches slept,
And dreaming thro’ the dew-fall
The cold white blossoms wept.
A Fantasy
Her voice is like clear water
That drips upon a stone
In forests far and silent
Where Quiet plays alone.
Her thoughts are like the lotus
Abloom by sacred streams
Beneath the temple arches
Where Quiet sits and dreams.
Her kisses are the roses
That glow while dusk is deep
In Persian garden closes
Where Quiet falls asleep.
A Minuet of Mozart’s
Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.
Twilight
Dreamily over the roofs
The cold spring rain is falling,
Out in the lonely tree
A bird is calling, calling.
Slowly over the earth
The wings of night are falling;
My heart like the bird in the tree
Is calling, calling, calling.
The Prayer
My answered prayer came up to me,
And in the silence thus spake he:
“O you who prayed for me to come,
Your greeting is but cold and dumb.”
My heart made answer: “You are fair,
But I have prayed too long to care.
Why came you not when all was new,
And I had died for joy of you.”
Two Songs for a Child
I
Grandfather’s Love
They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn’t put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn’t understand.
I thought they must have hidden it,
I hunted for it all the day,
And when I told them so at night
They smiled and turned their heads away.
They say that love is something kind,
That I can never see or touch.
I wish he’d sent me something else,
I like his cough-drops twice as much.
II
The Kind Moon
I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.
He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I’m sure he hasn’t legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.
Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thin
ks it isn’t right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho’ mother said I might.
On the Tower
A play in one act.
Under the leaf of many a Fable lies the Truth for those who look for it.
Jami.
The Knight.
The Lady.
Voices of men and women on the ground at the foot of the tower.
The voice of the Knight’s Page.
The top of a high battlemented tower of a castle. A stone ledge,
which serves as a seat, extends part way around the parapet.
Small clouds float by in the blue sky, and occasionally a swallow
passes.
Entrance R. from an unseen stairway which is supposed to extend
around the outside of the tower.
The Lady (unseen).
Oh do not climb so fast, for I am faint
With looking down the tower to where the earth
Lies dreaming in the sun. I fear to fall.
The Knight (unseen).
Lean on me, love, my love, and look not down.
L.
Call me not “love”, call me your conquered foe,
That now, since you have battered down her gates,
Gives you the keys that lock the highest tower
And mounts with you to prove her homage true;
Oh bid me go no farther lest I fall,
My foot has slipped upon the rain-worn stones,
Why are the stairs so narrow and so steep?
Let us go back, my lord.
K.
Are you afraid,
Who were so dauntless till the walls gave way?
Courage, my sweet. I would that I could climb
A thousand times by wind-swept stairs like these,
That lead so near to heaven.
L.
Sir, you may,
You are a knight and very valorous;
I am a woman. I shall never come
This way but once.
(The Knight and the Lady appear on the top of the tower.)
K.
Kiss me at last, my love.
L.
Oh, my sweet lord, I am too tired to kiss.
Look how the earth is like an emerald,
With rivers veined and flawed with fallow fields.
K. (Lifting her veil)
Then I kiss you, a thousand thousand kisses
For all the days ere I had won to you
Beyond the walls and gates you barred so close.
Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Page 6
