Sara Teasdale

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to seeA shower of sunlight over
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,

When I have ceased to break my wings Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,

One by one, like leaves from a tree All my faiths have forsaken me;
But the stars above my head Burn in white and delicate red,
And beneath my feet the earth Brings the sturdy grass to birth
I who was content to be But a silken-sing...

Bring me the roses white and red,
And take the laurel leaves away;
Yea, wreathe the roses round my
That wearies 'neath the crown of bay

My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her —But sometimes she is less your own Than a wild, gay adventurer;
A restless and an eager wraith,
How can I tell what she will do —Oh,

It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,

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;