Sara Teasdale
Life is but thought.Collection: Brainy
Beauty, more than bitterness, makes the heart break.Collection: Beauty
Though I know he loves me, tonight my heart is sad; his kiss was not so wonderful as all the dreams I had.Collection: Sad
Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation.Collection: Wisdom
When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Nature
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.
I have no riches but my thoughts. Yet these are wealth enough for me.
Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear because to a clear why.
A hush is over everything, Silent as women wait for love; The world is waiting for the spring.
Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty?
Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery.
There's nothing half so real in life as the things you've done... inexorably, unalterably done.
I found more joy in sorrow than you could find in joy.
No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.
look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be farCollection: Lovely
Only by love is life made real.Collection: Real
What we have never had, remains; It is the things we have that go.Collection: Unfulfillment
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.Collection: Life
My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain.Collection: Pain
I am not yours, nor lost in you, not lost, although I long to be. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still a spirit beautiful and bright, yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light.Collection: Beautiful
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pool 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.Collection: Spring
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.Collection: Time
Into my heart's treasury I slipped a coin That Time cannot take Nor a thief purloin- O better than the minting Of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing.Collection: Kings
My soul is a dark ploughed field In the cold rain; My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain.Collection: Pain
One by one, like leaves from a tree, / All my faiths have forsaken me.Collection: Faith
Life is a frail moth flying Caught in the web of the years that pass.Collection: Life
Can I ever know you / Or you know me?Collection: Know Me
My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation. It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem. ... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.Collection: Spring
My heart is a garden tired with autumn.Collection: Tired
I shall not let a sorrow die Until I find the heart of it, Nor let a wordless joy go by Until it talks to me a bit.Collection: Heart
I am alone, as though I stood On the highest peak of the tired gray world,About me only swirling snow, Above me, endless space unfurled;With earth hidden and heaven hidden, And only my own spirit's prideTo keep me from the peace of those Who are not lonely, having died.Collection: Lonely
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me, A lamp in darkness.Collection: Sleep
There in the windy flood of morning Longing lifted its weight from me, Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering, Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Stars
Let this single hour atone For the theft of all of meCollection: Hours
I could not be so sure of Spring / Save that it sings in me.Collection: Spring
When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafey trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and cold hearted Than you are nowCollection: Suicide
No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed; Lay that on your heart, My young angry dear; This truth, this hard and precious stone, Lay it on your hot cheek, Let it hide your tear. Hold it like a crystal When you are alone And gaze in the depths of the icy stone. Long, look long and you will be blessed: No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed.Collection: Blessed
Until I lose my soul and lie Blind to the beauty of the earth, Deaf though shouting wind goes by, Dumb in a storm of mirth; Until my heart is quenched at length And I have left the land of men, Oh, let me love with all my strength Careless if I am loved again.Collection: Lying
All through the deep blue night The fountain sang alone; It sang to the drowsy heart of the satyr carved in stone. The fountain sang and sang But the satyr never stirred- Only the great white moon In the empty heaven heard.Collection: Sunset
But oh, to him I loved Who loved me not at all,I owe the little open gate That led thru heaven's wall.Collection: Wall
As dew leaves the cobweb lightly Threaded with stars, Scattering jewels on the fence And the pasture bars; As dawn leaves the dry grass bright And the tangled weeds Bearing a rainbow gem On each of their seeds; So has your love, my lover, Fresh as the dawn, Made me a shining road To travel on, Set every common sight Of tree or stone Delicately alight For me alone.Collection: Weed
From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.Collection: Hands