Sara Teasdale

Alone in the
On a dark
With pines around
Spicy and still,

Fields beneath a quilt of snow From which the rocks and stubble sleep,
And in the west a shy white star That shivers as it wakes from deep
The restless rumble of the train,
The drowsy people in the car,

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,

When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough;

Your mind and mine are such great lovers
Have freed themselves from cautious human clay,
And on wild clouds of thought, naked
They ride above us in extreme delight;

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

Oh in the deep blue night The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart Of a 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 fountain sang ...

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,

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,

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,

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...

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;