Longing

I am not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,
For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,
But oh, my body that must go
Back to a little drift of dust
Without the joy it longed to know.

Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933) was an American lyric poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri and her first poem publication was in 1907. Teasdale's style was characterized by clarity and simplicity, often focusing on themes of love, nature, and death. She won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize for her 1917 collection Love Songs. Unfortunately, she faced severe health issues and depression towards the end of her life, leading to her suicide in 1933.

Sara Teasdale

Pain

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

Lessons

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

The Blind

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

To Eleonora Duse II

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

English

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Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow

I. Spirit's House

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.

II. Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Sl...

Sara Teasdale

A Prayer

Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though shouting 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.

Sara Teasdale

Compensation

I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,

If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night.

Sara Teasdale

Alone

I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give,
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.

I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;

With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.

Sara Teasdale

The Answer

When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:

"Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy."

Sara Teasdale

Sea Longing

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

Sara Teasdale