M O O N R I S E

AUGUST MOONRISE

The sun was gone,
and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy,
the east was flushed,
And over my head
the swallows rushed
This way and that,
with changeful wills.

I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,
And the hazy orange moon grew up

And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.
Down the hill I went, and then
I forgot the ways of men,
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me
On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup
You have made me drunk and wild
Ever since I was a child,
But when have I been sure as now
That no bitterness can bend
And no sorrow wholly bow
One who loves you to the end?

And though I must give my breath
And my laughter all to death,
And my eyes through which joy came,
And my heart, a wavering flame;
If all must leave me and go back
Along a blind and fearful track
So that you can make anew,
Fusing with intenser fire,
Something nearer your desire;
If my soul must go alone
Through a cold infinity,
Or even if it vanish, too,
Beauty, I have worshipped you.

Let this single hour atone
For the theft of all of me.

Sara Teasdale

© Sara Teasdale 1920
from Flame and Shadow; Macmillian, 1920
arthurwesleydow

ribbit

THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.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.Sara Teasdale

Online text © 1998-2007 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Flame and Shadow | Macmillian, 1920

blue squills

BLUE SQUILLS

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.

O shaken
flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you.

Sara Teasdale

Online text © 1998-2007 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Flame and Shadow | Macmillian, 1920

(to read the lyrics of the cherry blossom song, click here.
to go there click here.)

Water Lilies

•
If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have

forgotten their wet,
sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and
not be afraid.

But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.

(and)...................................................— Sara Teasdale