A November Night
There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street—
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,
The people on the street look up at us
All envious. We are a king and queen,
Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
We watch our subjects with a haughty joy. . . .
How still you are! Have you been hard at work
And are you tired to-night? It is so long
Since I have seen you—four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts
Like early flowers in an April meadow,
And I must give them to you, all of them,
Before they fade. The people I have met,
The play I saw, the trivial, shifting things
That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows
That hurry, gesturing along a wall,
Haunting or gay—and yet they all grow real
And take their proper size here in my heart
When you have seen them. . . . There's the Plaza now,
A lake of light! To-night it almost seems
That all the lights are gathered in your eyes,
Drawn somehow toward you. See the open park
Lying below us with a million lamps
Scattered in wise disorder like the stars.
We look down on them as God must look down
On constellations floating under Him
Tangled in clouds. . . . Come, then, and let us walk
Since we have reached the park. It is our garden,
All black and blossomless this winter night,
But we bring April with us, you and I;
We set the whole world on the trail of spring.
I think that every path we ever took
Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire,
Delicate gold that only fairies see.
When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks
And come out on the drowsy park, they look
Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here
They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see,
Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance
About it in a windy ring and make
A circle round it only they can cross
When they come back again!" . . . Look at the lake—
Do you remember how we watched the swans
That night in late October while they slept?
Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now
The lake bears only thin reflected lights
That shake a little. How I long to take
One from the cold black water—new-made gold
To give you in your hand! And see, and see,
There is a star, deep in the lake, a star!
Oh, dimmer than a pearl—if you stoop down
Your hand could almost reach it up to me. . . .
There was a new frail yellow moon to-night—
I wish you could have had it for a cup
With stars like dew to fill it to the brim. . . .
How cold it is! Even the lights are cold;
They have put shawls of fog around them, see!
What if the air should grow so dimly white
That we would lose our way along the paths
Made new by walls of moving mist receding
The more we follow. . . . What a silver night!
That was our bench the time you said to me
The long new poem—but how different now,
How eerie with the curtain of the fog
Making it strange to all the friendly trees!
There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls
Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
Walk on a little, let me stand here watching
To see you, too, grown strange to me and far. . . .
I used to wonder how the park would be
If one night we could have it all alone—
No lovers with close arm-encircled waists
To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
And now we have it! Every wish comes true!
We are alone now in a fleecy world;
Even the stars have gone. We two alone!
[End of Love Songs.]
{As an item of interest to the reader, the following, which was at the
end of this edition, is included. Only the advertisement for the same
author is included}.
By the same author
Rivers to the Sea
"There is hardly another American woman-poet whose poetry is generally
known and loved like that of Sara Teasdale. 'Rivers to the Sea', her
latest volume of lyrics, possesses the delicacy of imagery, the inward
illumination, the high vision that characterize the poetry that will
endure the test of time."—'Review of Reviews'.
"'Rivers to the Sea' is a book of sheer delight. . . . Her touch turns
everything to song."—Edward J. Wheeler, in 'Current Opinion'.
"Sara Teasdale's lyrics have the clarity, the precision, the grace and
fragrance of flowers."—Harriet Monroe, in 'Poetry'.
"Sara Teasdale has a genius for the song, for the perfect lyric, in
which the words seem to have fallen into place without art or
effort."—Louis Untermeyer, in 'The Chicago Evening Post'.
"'Rivers to the Sea' is the best book of pure lyrics that has appeared
in English since A. E. Housman's 'A Shropshire Lad'."—William Marion
Reedy, in 'The Mirror'.
"'Rivers to the Sea' is the most beautiful book of pure lyrics that has
come to my hand in years."—'Los Angeles Graphic'.
"Sara Teasdale sings about love better than any other contemporary
American poet."—'The Boston Transcript'.
"'Rivers to the Sea' is the most charming volume of poetry that has
appeared on either side of the Atlantic in a score of years."—'St.
Louis Republic'.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933):
Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended a school
that was founded by the grandfather of another great poet from St.
Louis—T. S. Eliot. She later associated herself more with New York
City.
Her first book of poems was "Sonnets to Duse" (1907), [at least one poem
in the current volume, "Faults", is from this book,] but "Helen of Troy"
(1911) was the true launch of her career, followed by "Rivers to the Sea"
(1915), "Love Songs" (1917), "Flame and Shadow" (1920) and more. Her
final volume, "Strange Victory", is considered by many to be predictive
of her suicide in 1933.