Sara Teasdale – 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.

Sara Teasdale – There Will Come Soft Rain

There will come soft rain 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;

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.

Sara Teasdale – Love In Autumn

I sought among the drifting leaves,

The golden leaves that once were green,

To see if Love were hiding there

And peeping out between.

For thro' the silver showers of May

And thro' the summer's heavy heat,

In vain I sought his golden head

And light, fast-flying feet.

Perhaps when all the world is bare

And cruel winter holds the land,

The Love that finds no place to hide

Will run and catch my hand.

I shall not care to have him then,

I shall be bitter and a-cold --

It grows too late for frolicking

When all the world is old.

Then little hiding Love, come forth,

Come forth before the autumn goes,

And let us seek thro' ruined paths

The garden's last red rose.

Sara Teasdale – After Love

There is no magic any more,

We meet as other people do,

You work no miracle for me

Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea -

There is no splendor any more,

I have grown listless as the pool

Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm

And from the tide has found surcease,

It grows more bitter than the sea,

For all its peace.

Sara Teasdale – Advice To A Girl

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.