Sara Teasdale Quotes

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.

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

When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafey trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and cold hearted Than you are now

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.

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.

The leaves fall patiently Nothing remembers or grieves The river takes to the sea The yellow drift of leaves.

I found more joy in sorrow than you could find in joy.

It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.

The wind is tossing the lilacs, The new leaves laugh in the sun, And the petals fall on the orchard wall, But for me the spring is done. Beneath the apple blossoms I go a wintry way, For love that smiled in April Is false to me in May.

I am not yours, nor 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.

Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation.

A delicate fabric of bird song Floats in the air, The smell of wet wild earth Is everywhere. Oh I must pass nothing by Without loving it much, The raindrop try with my lips, The grass with my touch; For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May Shining after the rain?

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

Life is a frail moth flying Caught in the web of the years that pass.

I have no riches but my thoughts. Yet these are wealth enough for me.

Only by love is life made real.

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup.

One by one, like leaves from a tree, / All my faiths have forsaken me.

SONG You bound strong sandals on my feet, You gave me bread and wine, And sent me under sun and stars, For all the world was mine. Oh, take the sandals off my feet, You know not what you do, For all my world is in your arms, My sun and stars are you.

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.

All through the deep blue night The fountain sang alone;

It sang to the drowsy heart of the satyr carved in stone. The fountain sang and sang But the satyr never stirred- Only the great white moon In the empty heaven heard.

The roofs are shining from the rain, The sparrows twitter 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.

Though I know he loves me, tonight my heart is sad;

his kiss was not so wonderful as all the dreams I had.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough; And I shall be more silent and cold hearted than you are now.

Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

Spend all you have for loveliness.

Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear because to a clear why.

Beauty, more than bitterness, makes the heart break.

Oh to be free of myself, With nothing left to remember, To have my heart as bare As a tree in December; Resting, as a tree rests After its leaves are gone, Waiting no more for a rain at night Nor for the red at dawn.

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.

look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be far

Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery.

Stephen kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Stephen’s kiss was lost in jest, Robin’s lost in play, But the kiss in Colin’s eyes Haunts me night and day.

Joy was a flame in me Too steady to destroy. Lithe as a bending reed, Loving the storm that sways her

Life has loveliness to sell, / Music like a curve of gold, / Scent of pine trees in the rain, / Eyes that love you, arms that hold, / And for your spirit's still delight, / Holy thoughts that star the night.

A hush is over everything, Silent as women wait for love; The world is waiting for the spring.

It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,/ In the dawn clouds flying,/ How good to go, light into light, and still/ Giving light, dying.

Faults They came to tell your faults to me, They named them over one by one; I laughed aloud when they were done, I knew them all so well before,-- Oh, they were blind, too blind to see Your faults had made me love you more.

I stood beside a hill Smooth with new-laid snow, A single star looked out From the cold evening glow. There was not other creature That saw what I could see, I stood and watched the evening star As long as it watched me.

My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation. It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem. ... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.

O lovely chance, what can I doTo give my gratefulness to you?You rise between myself and meWith a wise persistency;I would have broken body and soul,But by your grace, still I am whole.

No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf, That color every drop they hold, To change the lifeless wine of grief To living gold.

How many million Aprils came before I ever knew how white a cherry bough could be, a bed of squills, how blue And many a dancing April when life is done with me, will lift the blue flame of the flower and the white flame of the tree Oh burn me with your beauty then, oh hurt me tree and flower, lest in the end death try to take even this glistening hour.

The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you.

Now at last I have come to see what life is, Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun, And the brave victories that seem so splendid Are never really won.

Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no moreTo thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,It is that thou hast made my life too sweetTo hold the added sweetness of a song.There is a quiet at the heart of love,And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, We will come back to earth some fragrant night, And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white. We will come down at night to these resounding beaches And the long gentle thunder of the sea, Here for a single hour in the wide starlight We shall be happy, for the dead are free.