SUMMER NIGHT, RIVERSIDE
IN the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled my hair. . . .
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.
To-night what girl
When she goes home,
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year’s blossoms, clinging in its coils ?
IN A SUBWAY STATION
AFTER a year I came again to the place;
The tireless lights and the reverberation,
The angry thunder of trains that burrow the ground,
The hunted, hurrying people were still the same —
But oh, another man beside me and not you!
Another voice and other eyes in mine!
And suddenly I turned and saw again
The gleaming curve of tracks, the bridge above —
They were burned deep into my heart before,
The night I watched them to avoid your eyes,
When you were saying, “Oh, look up at me!”
When you were saying, “Will you never love me?”
And when I answered with a lie. Oh then
You dropped your eyes. I felt your utter pain.
I would have died to say the truth to you.
After a year I came again to the place —
The hunted hurrying people were still the same….
AFTER LOVE
THERE is no magic when we meet,
We speak as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea —
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But tho’ the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
DOORYARD ROSES
I HAVE come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there
Burning as before.
While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start —
Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.
A PRAYER
UNTIL I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf tho’ a lyric 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.
PART II.
INDIAN SUMMER
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 and 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 you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
THE SEA WIND
I AM a pool in a peaceful place,
I greet the great sky face to face,
I know the stars and the stately moon
And the wind that runs with rippling shoon —
But why does it always bring to me
The far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?
The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green,
But the wind comes whispering in between,
In the dead of night when the sky is deep
The wind comes waking me out of sleep —
Why does it always bring to me
The far-off, terrible call of the sea?
THE CLOUD
I AM a cloud in the heaven’s height,
The stars are lit for my delight,
Tireless and changeful, swift and free,
I cast my shadow on hill and sea —
But why do the pines on the mountain’s crest
Call to me always, “Rest, rest”?
I throw my mantle over the moon
And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,
Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,
I am a child of the heartless wind —
But oh the pines on the mountain’s crest
Whispering always, “Rest, rest.”
THE POOR HOUSE
HOPE went by and Peace went by
And would not enter in;
Youth went by and Health went by
And Love that is their kin.
Those within the house shed tears
On their bitter bread;
Some were old and some were mad,
And some were sick a-bed.
Gray Death saw the wretched house
And even he passed by —
“They have never lived,” he said,
“They can wait to die.”
NEW YEAR’S DAWN — BROADWAY
WHEN the horns wear thin
And the noise, like a garment outworn,
Falls from the night,
The tattered and shivering night,
That thinks she is gay;
When the patient silence comes back,
And retires,
And returns,
Rebuffed by a ribald song,
Wounded by vehement cries,
Fleeing again to the stars —
Ashamed of her sister the night;
Oh, then they steal home,
The blinded, the pitiful ones
With their gew-gaws still in their hands,
Reeling with odorous breath
And thick, coarse words on their tongues.
They get them to bed, somehow,
And sleep the forgiving,
Comes thru the scattering tumult
And closes their eyes.
The stars sink down ashamed
And the dawn awakes,
Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
Dizzy and sick.
THE STAR
A WHITE star born in the evening glow
Looked to the round green world below,
And saw a pool in a wooded place
That held like a jewel her mirrored face.
She said to the pool: “Oh, wondrous deep,
I love you, I give you my light to keep.
Oh, more profound than the moving sea
That never has shown myself to me!
Oh, fathomless as the sky is far,
Hold forever your tremulous star!”
But out of the woods as night grew cool
A brown pig came to the little pool;
It grunted and splashed and waded in
And the deepest place but reached its chin.
The water gurgled with tender glee
And the mud churned up in it turbidl
y.
The star grew pale and hid her face
In a bit of floating cloud like lace.
DOCTORS
EVERY night I lie awake
And every day I lie abed
And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
Conferring at my head.
They speak in scientific tones,
Professional and low —
One argues for a speedy cure,
The other, sure and slow.
To one so humble as myself
It should be matter for some pride
To have such noted fellows here,
Conferring at my side.
.
THE INN OF EARTH
I CAME to the crowded Inn of Earth,
And called for a cup of wine,
But the Host went by with averted eye
From a thirst as keen as mine.
Then I sat down with weariness
And asked a bit of bread,
But the Host went by with averted eye
And never a word he said.
While always from the outer night
The waiting souls came in
With stifled cries of sharp surprise
At all the light and din.
“Then give me a bed to sleep,” I said,
“For midnight comes apace” —
But the Host went by with averted eye
And I never saw his face.
“Since there is neither food nor rest,
I go where I fared before” —
But the Host went by with averted eye
And barred the outer door.
IN THE CARPENTER’S SHOP
MARY sat in the corner dreaming,
Dim was the room and low,
While in the dusk, the saw went screaming
To and fro.
Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
Mary was watching them,
Thinking of kings in the wintry weather
At Bethlehem.
Mary sat in the corner thinking,
Jesus had grown a man;
One by one her hopes were sinking
As the years ran.
Jesus and Joseph toiled together,
Mary’s thoughts were far —
Angels sang in the wintry weather
Under a star.
Mary sat in the corner weeping,
Bitter and hot her tears —
Little faith were the angels keeping
All the years.
THE CARPENTER’S SON
THE summer dawn came over-soon,
The earth was like hot iron at noon
In Nazareth;
There fell no rain to ease the heat,
And dusk drew on with tired feet
And stifled breath.
The shop was low and hot and square,
And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air,
While all day long
The saw went tearing thru the oak
That moaned as tho’ the tree’s heart broke
Beneath its wrong.
The narrow street was full of cries,
Of bickering and snarling lies
In many keys —
The tongues of Egypt and of Rome
And lands beyond the shifting foam
Of windy seas.
Sometimes a ruler riding fast
Scattered the dark crowds as he passed,
And drove them close
In doorways, drawing broken breath
Lest they be trampled to their death
Where the dust rose.
There in the gathering night and noise
A group of Galilean boys
Crowding to see
Gray Joseph toiling with his son,
Saw Jesus, when the task was done,
Turn wearily.
He passed them by with hurried tread
Silently, nor raised his head,
He who looked up
Drinking all beauty from his birth
Out of the heaven and the earth
As from a cup.
And Mary, who was growing old,
Knew that the pottage would be cold
When he returned;
He hungered only for the night,
And westward, bending sharp and bright,
The thin moon burned.
He reached the open western gate
Where whining halt and leper wait,
And came at last
To the blue desert, where the deep
Great seas of twilight lay asleep,
Windless and vast.
With shining eyes the stars awoke,
The dew lay heavy on his cloak,
The world was dim;
And in the stillness he could hear
His secret thoughts draw very near
And call to him.
Faint voices lifted shrill with pain
And multitudinous as rain;
From all the lands
And all the villages thereof
Men crying for the gift of love
With outstretched hands.
Voices that called with ceaseless crying,
The broken and the blind, the dying,
And those grown dumb
Beneath oppression, and he heard
Upon their lips a single word,
“Come!”
Their cries engulfed him like the night,
The moon put out her placid light
And black and low
Nearer the heavy thunder drew,
Hushing the voices . . . yet he knew
That he would go.
A quick-spun thread of lightning burns,
And for a flash the day returns —
He only hears
Joseph, an old man bent and white
Toiling alone from morn till night
Thru all the years.
Swift clouds make all the heavens blind,
A storm is running on the wind —
He only sees
How Mary will stretch out her hands
Sobbing, who never understands
Voices like these.
THE MOTHER OF A POET
SHE is too kind, I think, for mortal things,
Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth;
God gave to her a shy and silver mirth,
And made her soul as clear
And softly singing as an orchard spring’s
In sheltered hollows all the sunny year —
A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up
And holds all heaven in its clarid cup,
Mirror to holy meadows high and blue
With stars like drops of dew.
I love to think that never tears at night
Have made her eyes less bright;
That all her girlhood thru
Never a cry of love made over-tense
Her voice’s innocence;
That in her hands have lain,
Flowers beaten by the rain,
And little birds before they learned to sing
Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.
I love to think that with a wistful wonder
She held her baby warm against her breast;
That never any fear awoke whereunder
She shuddered at her gift, or trembled lest
Thru the great doors of birth
Here to a windy earth
She lured from heaven a half-unwilling guest.
She caught and kept his first vague flickering smile,
The faint upleaping of his spirit’s fire;
And for a long sweet while
In her was all he asked of earth or heaven —
But in the end how far,
Past every shaken star,
Should leap at last that arrow-like desire,
His full-grown manhood’s keen
Ardor toward the unseen
Dark mystery beyond the Pleiads seven.
And in her heart she heard
His firs
t dim-spoken word —
She only of them all could understand,
Flushing to feel at last
The silence over-past,
Thrilling as tho’ her hand had touched God’s hand.
But in the end how many words
Winged on a flight she could not follow,
Farther than skyward lark or swallow,
His lips should free to lands she never knew;
Braver than white sea-faring birds
With a fearless melody,
Flying over a shining sea,
A star-white song between the blue and blue.
Oh I have seen a lake as clear and fair
As it were molten air,
Lifting a lily upward to the sun.
How should the water know the glowing heart
That ever to the heaven lifts its fire,
A golden and unchangeable desire?
The water only knows
The faint and rosy glows
Of under-petals, opening apart.
Yet in the soul of earth,
Deep in the primal ground,
Its searching roots are wound,
And centuries have struggled toward its birth.
So, in the man who sings,
All of the voiceless horde
From the cold dawn of things
Have their reward;
All in whose pulses ran
Blood that is his at last,
From the first stooping man
Far in the winnowed past.
Out of the tumult of their love and mating
Each one created, seeing life was good —
Dumb, till at last the song that they were waiting
Breaks like brave April thru a wintry wood.
RIVERS TO THE SEA
But what of her whose heart is troubled by it,
The mother who would soothe and set him free,
Fearing the song’s storm-shaken ecstasy —
Oh, as the moon that has no power to quiet
The strong wind-driven sea.
.
IN MEMORIAM F. O. S.
You go a long and lovely journey,
For all the stars, like burning dew,
Are luminous and luring footprints
Of souls adventurous as you.
Oh, if you lived on earth elated,
How is it now that you can run
Free of the weight of flesh and faring
Far past the birthplace of the sun?
TWILIGHT
THE stately tragedy of dusk
Drew to its perfect close,
Complete Works of Sara Teasdale Page 9
