The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Songs, by Sara Teasdale

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Title: Love Songs

Author: Sara Teasdale

Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #442] Release Date: February, 1996

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE SONGS ***

Produced by A. Light and L. Bowser. For Gwenette.

[Note on text: Italicized stanzas are indented 5 spaces. Two italicized lines are marked by asterisks (*). Lines longer than 78 characters are broken, and the continuation is indented two spaces.]

[This etext was transcribed from a 1918 reprinting of the 1917 edition, which was the original. It is interesting that some of those poems included from earlier volumes have been slightly changed in this book.]

Love Songs

By

Sara Teasdale

[American (Missouri & New York) poet, 1884-1933.]

Author of "Rivers to the Sea", "Helen of Troy and Other Poems", Etc.

To E.

     I have remembered beauty in the night,
      Against black silences I waked to see
      A shower of sunlight over Italy
     And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
     I have remembered music in the dark,
      The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
      And running water singing on the rocks
     When once in English woods I heard a lark.

     But all remembered beauty is no more
      Than a vague prelude to the thought of you—
      You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
         Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
     My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
         And when I think of you, I am at rest.

Prefatory Note

Beside new poems, this book contains lyrics taken from "Rivers to the Sea", "Helen of Troy and Other Poems", and one or two from an earlier volume.

Contents

I

  Barter
  Twilight
  Night Song at Amalfi
  The Look
  A Winter Night
  A Cry
  Gifts
  But Not to Me
  Song at Capri
  Child, Child
  Love Me
  Pierrot
  Wild Asters
  The Song for Colin
  Four Winds
  Debt
  Faults
  Buried Love
  The Fountain
  I Shall Not Care
  After Parting
  A Prayer
  Spring Night
  May Wind
  Tides
  After Love
  New Love and Old
  The Kiss
  Swans
  The River
  November
  Spring Rain
  The Ghost
  Summer Night, Riverside
  Jewels

II

Interlude: Songs out of Sorrow

     I. Spirit's House
    II. Mastery
   III. Lessons
    IV. Wisdom
     V. In a Burying Ground
    VI. Wood Song
   VII. Refuge

III

  The Flight
  Dew
  To-night
  Ebb Tide
  I Would Live in Your Love
  Because
  The Tree of Song
  The Giver
  April Song
  The Wanderer
  The Years
  Enough
  Come
  Joy
  Riches
  Dusk in War Time
  Peace
  Moods
  Houses of Dreams
  Lights
  "I Am Not Yours"
  Doubt
  The Wind
  Morning
  Other Men
  Embers
  Message
  The Lamp

IV

A November Night

Love Songs

I

Barter

  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.

  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.

  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.

Twilight

  Dreamily over the roofs
   The cold spring rain is falling;
  Out in the lonely tree
   A bird is calling, calling.

  Slowly over the earth
   The wings of night are falling;
  My heart like the bird in the tree
   Is calling, calling, calling.

Night Song at Amalfi

  I asked the heaven of stars
   What I should give my love—
  It answered me with silence,
   Silence above.

  I asked the darkened sea
   Down where the fishers go—
  It answered me with silence,
   Silence below.

  Oh, I could give him weeping,
   Or I could give him song—
  But how can I give silence,
   My whole life long?

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.

A Winter Night

  My window-pane is starred with frost,
   The world is bitter cold to-night,
  The moon is cruel, and the wind
   Is like a two-edged sword to smite.

  God pity all the homeless ones,
   The beggars pacing to and fro,
  God pity all the poor to-night
   Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.

  My room is like a bit of June,
   Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
  But somewhere, like a homeless child,
   My heart is crying in the cold.

A Cry

  Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
   And hands to make his hands rejoice,
  But to my lover I must be
   Only a voice.