Love Songs | Page 3

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?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.
Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,?And lips whereon his lips can lie,?But I must be till I am dead?Only a cry.
Gifts
I gave my first love laughter,?I gave my second tears,?I gave my third love silence?Through all the years.
My first love gave me singing,?My second eyes to see,?But oh, it was my third love?Who gave my soul to me.
But Not to Me
The April night is still and sweet?With flowers on every tree;?Peace comes to them on quiet feet,
But not to me.
My peace is hidden in his breast?Where I shall never be;?Love comes to-night to all the rest,
But not to me.
Song at Capri
When beauty grows too great to bear?How shall I ease me of its ache,?For beauty more than bitterness?Makes the heart break.
Now while I watch the dreaming sea?With isles like flowers against her breast,?Only one voice in all the world?Could give me rest.
Child, Child
Child, child, love while you can?The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;?Never fear though it break your heart --?Out of the wound new joy will start;?Only love proudly and gladly and well,?Though love be heaven or love be hell.
Child, child, love while you may,?For life is short as a happy day;?Never fear the thing you feel --?Only by love is life made real;?Love, for the deadly sins are seven,?Only through love will you enter heaven.
Love Me
Brown-thrush singing all day long?In the leaves