“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.”
#QuotsyOct21
“From the Woolworth Tower”
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...
#skyscraper #QuotsyAug21
“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?”
from “The Sea Wind” #QuotsyJul20 #grass
Alchemy
I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow #daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.
#QuotsyJun20
We are apart; the city grows quiet between us,
She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,
The tangle of traffic is ended, the cars are empty,
Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.
Oh are you asleep, or lying awake, my lover?
Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words,
I send you my thoughts-the air between us is laden,
My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.
We are apart; the city grows quiet between us,
She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,
The tangle of traffic is ended, the cars are empty,
Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.
Oh are you asleep, or lying awake, my lover?
Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words,
I send you my thoughts-the air between us is laden,
My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.
Vignettes Overseas II
Off Algiers
Oh give me neither love nor tears,
Nor dreams that sear the night with fire,
Go lightly on your pilgrimage
Unburdened by desire.
Forget me for a month, a year,
But, oh, beloved, think of me
When unexpected beauty burns
Like sudden sunlight on the sea.
#Beloved #PoetryMatters
Vignettes Overseas
VII
Rome
Oh for the rising moon
Over the roofs of Rome,
And swallows in the dusk
Circling a darkened dome!
Oh for the measured dawns
That pass with folded wings—
How can I let them go
With unremembered things?
#Circle #QuotsyJan21
from “The Lights of New York”
THE lightning spun your garment for the night
Of silver filaments with fire shot thru,
A broidery of lamps that lit for you
The steadfast splendor of enduring light.
#Lightning #QuotsyAug20
Vignettes Overseas
X
Stresa
The moon grows out of the hills
A yellow flower,
The lake is a dreamy bride
Who waits her hour.
Beauty has filled my heart,
It can hold no more,
It is full, as the lake is full,
From shore to shore.
#shore #QuotsyAug20
Alchemy
I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.
#flowers #QuotsyMay20
#Morning from Rivers to the Sea
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.
There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.
#PoetryMatters
Hope this isn‘t cheating—I started the tagged book in March but I‘m using it as my Female Poet pick for the #575PMRChallenge. This is the 2nd Sara Teasdale book I‘ve read. I wish I‘d discovered her work much sooner! Her passionate poems speak to me in a way I can‘t exactly describe. Few poets have moved me to such an extent. My favourites from Rivers to the Sea were: Swans, Peace, I Shall Not Care, The Cloud, The River, Leaves, and the Answer.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.
I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"
But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the #salt waves drank of me,
And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.
#PoetryMatters
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 a rushing wind.
#QuotsyNov17 #Lost
Rivers to the Sea | 
