Complete Works of Sara Teasdale
Page 7
Call me at last your love, your castle’s lord.
L. (After a pause)
I love you.
(She kisses him. Her veil blows away like a white butterfly
over the parapet. Faint cries and laughter from men and women
under the tower.)
Men and Women.
The veil, the lady’s veil!
(The knight takes the lady in his arms.)
L.
My lord, I pray you loose me from your arms
Lest that my people see how much we love.
K.
May they not see us? All of them have loved.
L.
But you have been an enemy, my lord,
With walls between us and with moss-grown moats,
Now on a sudden must I kiss your mouth?
I who was taught before I learned to speak
That all my house was hostile unto yours,
Now can I put my head against your breast
Here in the sight of all who choose to come?
K.
Are we not past the caring for their eyes
And nearer to the heaven than to earth?
Look up and see.
L.
I only see your face.
(She touches his hair with her hands. Murmuring under the tower.)
K.
Why came we here in all the noon-day light
With only darting swallows over us
To make a speck of darkness on the sun?
Let us go down where walls will shut us round.
Your castle has a hundred quiet halls,
A hundred chambers, where the shadows lie
On things put by, forgotten long ago.
Forgotten lutes with strings that Time has slackened,
We two shall draw them close and bid them sing —
Forgotten games, forgotten books still open
Where you had laid them by at vesper-time,
And your embroidery, whereon half-worked
Weeps Amor wounded by a rose’s thorn.
Shall I not see the room in which you slept,
Palpitant still and breathing of your thoughts,
Where maiden dreams adown the ways of sleep
Swept noiselessly with damosels and knights
To tourneys where the trumpet made no sound,
Blow as he might, the scarlet trumpeter,
And were the dreams not sometimes brimmed with tears
That waked you when the night was loneliest?
Will you not bring me to your oratory
Where prayers arose like little birds set free
Still upward, upward without sound of flight?
Shall I not find your turrets toward the north,
Where you defied white winter armed for war;
Your southern casements where the sun blows in
Between the leaf-bent boughs the wind has lifted?
Shall we not see the sunrise toward the east,
Watch dawn by dawn the rose of day unfolding
Its golden-hearted beauty sovereignly;
And toward the west look quietly at evening?
Shall I not see all these and all your treasures?
In carven coffers hidden in the dark
Have you not laid a sapphire lit with flame
And amethysts set round with deep-wrought gold,
Perhaps a ruby?
L.
All my gems are yours
And all my chambers curtained from the sun.
My lord shall see them all, in time, in time.
(The sun begins to sink.)
K.
Shall I not see them now? To-day, to-night?
L.
How could I show you in one day, my lord,
My castle and my treasures and my tower?
Let all the days to come suffice for this
Since all the past days made them what they are.
You will not be impatient, my sweet lord.
Some of the halls have long been locked and barred,
And some have secret doors and hard to find
Till suddenly you touch them unawares,
And down a sable way runs silver light.
We two will search together for the keys,
But not to-day. Let us sit here to-day,
Since all is yours and always will be yours.
(The stars appear faintly one by one.)
K. (After a pause.)
I grow a little drowsy with the dusk.
L. (Singing.)
There was a man that loved a maid,
(Sleep and take your rest)
Over her lips his kiss was laid,
Over her heart, his breast.
(The knight sleeps.)
All of his vows were sweet to hear,
Sweet was his kiss to take;
Why was her breast so quick to fear,
Why was her heart, to break?
Why was the man so glad to woo?
(Sleep and take your rest)
Why were the maiden’s words so few ——
(She sees that he is asleep, and slipping off her long cloak-like
outer garment, she pillows his head upon it against the parapet,
and half kneeling at his feet she sings very softly:)
I love you, I love you, I love you,
I am the flower at your feet,
The birds and the stars are above you,
My place is more sweet.
The birds and the stars are above you,
They envy the flower in the grass,
For I, only I, while I love you
Can die as you pass.
(Light clouds veil the stars, growing denser constantly.
The castle bell rings for vespers, and rising, the lady moves
to a corner of the parapet and kneels there.)
L.
Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus ——
Voice of the Page (from the foot of the tower.)
My lord, my lord, they call for you at court!
(The knight wakes. It is now quite dark.)
There is a tourney toward; your enemy
Has challenged you. My lord, make haste to come!
(The knight rises and gropes his way toward the stairs.)
K.
I will make haste. Await me where you are.
(To himself.)
There was a lady on this tower with me ——
(He glances around hurriedly but does not see her in the darkness.)
Page.
My lord has far to ride before the dawn!
K. (To himself.)
Why should I tarry?
(To the page.)
Bring my horse and shield!
(He descends. As the noise of his footfall on the stairs dies away, the lady gropes toward the stairway, then turns suddenly, and going to the ledge where they have sat, she throws herself over the parapet.)
CURTAIN.
Rivers to the Sea, 1915
CONTENTS
PART I.
SPRING NIGHT
THE FLIGHT
BUT WHAT IF I HEARD MY FIRST LOVE CALLING ME ONCE MORE?
NEW LOVE AND OLD
THE LOOK
SPRING
THE LIGHTED WINDOW
THE KISS
SWANS
THE OLD MAID
FROM THE WOOLWORTH TOWER
AT NIGHT
THE YEARS
PEACE
APRIL
COME
MOODS
APRIL SONG
MAY DAY
CROWNED
TO A CASTILIAN SONG
BROADWAY
A WINTER BLUEJAY
IN A RESTAURANT
JOY
IN A RAILROAD STATION
IN THE TRAIN
TO ONE AWAY
SONG
DEEP IN THE NIGHT
THE INDIA WHARF
I SHALL NOT CARE
DESERT POOLS
LO
NGING
PITY
AFTER PARTING
ENOUGH
ALCHEMY
FEBRUARY
MORNING
MAY NIGHT
DUSK IN JUNE
LOVE-FREE
SUMMER NIGHT, RIVERSIDE
IN A SUBWAY STATION
AFTER LOVE
DOORYARD ROSES
A PRAYER
PART II.
INDIAN SUMMER
THE SEA WIND
THE CLOUD
THE POOR HOUSE
NEW YEAR’S DAWN — BROADWAY
THE STAR
DOCTORS
IN THE CARPENTER’S SHOP
THE CARPENTER’S SON
THE MOTHER OF A POET
RIVERS TO THE SEA
IN MEMORIAM F. O. S.
TWILIGHT
SWALLOW FLIGHT
THOUGHTS
TO DICK, ON HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY
TO ROSE
THE FOUNTAIN
THE ROSE
DREAMS
“I AM NOT YOURS”
PIERROT’S SONG
NIGHT IN ARIZONA
DUSK IN WAR TIME
SPRING IN WAR TIME
WHILE I MAY
DEBT
FROM THE NORTH
THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK
SEA LONGING
THE RIVER
LEAVES
THE ANSWER
PART III.
OVER THE ROOFS
A CRY
CHANCE
IMMORTAL
AFTER DEATH
TESTAMENT
GIFTS
PART IV.
FROM THE SEA
VIGNETTES OVERSEAS
PART V.
SAPPHO
The first edition
The first edition’s title page
PART I.
SPRING NIGHT
THE park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.
Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.
Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
Oh, beauty are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love
With youth, a singing voice and eyes
To take earth’s wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
Oh, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?
THE FLIGHT
LOOK back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain —
BUT WHAT IF I HEARD MY FIRST LOVE CALLING ME AGAIN?
Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door —
BUT WHAT IF I HEARD MY FIRST LOVE CALLING ME ONCE MORE?
NEW LOVE AND OLD
IN my heart the old love
Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly waking
All night thru.
Dear things, kind things,
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves reproachfully
Round my bed.
But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
The eyes of my new love
Fixed on me.
Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
Shall I be faithless to myself
Or to you?
THE LOOK
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.
SPRING
IN Central Park the lovers sit,
On every hilly path they stroll,
Each thinks his love is infinite,
And crowns his soul.
But we are cynical and wise,
We walk a careful foot apart,
You make a little joke that tries
To hide your heart.
Give over, we have laughed enough;
Oh dearest and most foolish friend,
Why do you wage a war with love
To lose your battle in the end?
THE LIGHTED WINDOW
HE SAID:
“In the winter dusk
When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
I walked thru a dingy street
Hurried, harassed,
Thinking of all my problems that never are
solved.
Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
Shone from a huddled shop.
I saw thru the bleary window
A mass of playthings:
False-faces hung on strings,
Valentines, paper and tinsel,
Tops of scarlet and green,
Candy, marbles, jacks —
A confusion of color
Pathetically gaudy and cheap.
All of my boyhood
Rushed back.
Once more these things were treasures
Wildly desired.
With covetous eyes I looked again at the marbles,
The precious agates, the pee-wees, the chinies —
Then I passed on.
In the winter dusk,
The pavements were gleaming with rain;
There in the lighted window
I left my boyhood.”
THE KISS
BEFORE YOU kissed me only winds of heaven
Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain —
Now you have come, how can I care for kisses
Like theirs again?
I sought the sea, she sent her winds to meet me,
They surged about me singing of the south —
I turned my head away to keep still holy
Your kiss upon my mouth.
And swift sweet rains of shining April weather
Found not my lips where living kisses are;
I bowed my head lest they put out my glory
As rain puts out a star.
I am my love’s and he is mine forever,
Sealed with a seal and safe forevermore —
Think you that I could let a beggar enter
Where a king stood before?
SWANS
NIGHT is over the park, and a few brave stars
Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold,
The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars
That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold.
We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,
And now and again one wakes and uplifts its head;
How still you are — your gaze is on my face —
We watch the swans and never a word is said.
THE OLD MAID
I SAW her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes
Tho’ love had never made them shine.
Her b
ody was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark
Unwarmed forever by love’s flame.
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me, —
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.
FROM THE WOOLWORTH TOWER
VIVID with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,
And the lift receives us.
Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight
The car shoots upward,
And the air, swirling and angry,
Howls like a hundred devils.
Past the maze of trim bronze doors,
Steadily we ascend.
I cling to you
Conscious of the chasm under us,
And a terrible whirring deafens my ears.
The flight is ended.
We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge —
Wind, night and space
Oh terrible height
Why have we sought you?
Oh bitter wind with icy invisible wings
Why do you beat us?
Why would you bear us away?
We look thru the miles of air,
The cold blue miles between us and the city,
Over the edge of eternity we look
On all the lights,
A thousand times more numerous than the stars;
Oh lines and loops of light in unwound chains
That mark for miles and miles
The vast black mazy cobweb of the streets;
Near us clusters and splashes of living gold
That change far off to bluish steel
Where the fragile lights on the Jersey shore
Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.
The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread into the night,
Their whistles weird shadows of sound.
We feel the millions of humanity beneath us, —
The warm millions, moving under the roofs,
Consumed by their own desires;
Preparing food,
Sobbing alone in a garret,
With burning eyes bending over a needle,
Aimlessly reading the evening paper,
Dancing in the naked light of the café,
Laying out the dead,
Bringing a child to birth —
The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy
Come up to us