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.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Three And One

Sometimes she seems so helpless and mild,

So full of sweet unreason and so weak,

So prone to some capricious whim or freak;

Now gay, now tearful, and now anger-wild,

By her strange moods of waywardness beguiled

And entertained, I stroke her pretty cheek,

And soothing words of peace and comfort speak;

And love her as a father loves a child.

Sometimes when I am troubled and sore pressed

On every side by fast advancing care,

She rises up with such majestic air,

I deem her some Olympian goddess-guest,

Who brings my heart new courage, hope, and rest.

In her brave eyes dwells balm for my despair,

And then I seem, while fondly gazing there,

A loving child upon my mothers breast.

Again, when her warm veins are full of life,

And youth’s volcanic tidal wave of fire

Sends the swift mercury of her pulses higher,

Her beauty stirs my heart to maddening strife,

And all the tiger in my blood is rife;

I love her with a lover’s fierce desire,

And find in her my dream, complete, entire,

Child, Mother, Mistress – all in one word – Wife.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Sing To Me

Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom,

I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom,

I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, -

Sing of the beauty and brightness of life –

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad!

I am so weary, my soul so sad.

All my earth riches are covered with rust,

All my bright dreams are but ashes and dust.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing og the blossoms that open in spring,

How the sweet flowers blow, and the long lichens cling,

Say, though the winter is round about me,

There are bright summers and springs yet to be.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing me a song full of hope and of truth,

Brimming with all the sweet fancies of youth!

Say, though my sorrow I may not forget,

I have not quite done with happiness yet.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Lay your soft fingers just here, on my cheek;

Turn the light lower – there- no, do not speak,

But sing! My heart thrills at your beautiful voice;

Sing till I turn from my grief and rejoice.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – My Home

This is the place that I love the best,

A little brown house, like a ground-bird's nest,

Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees,

Summer retreat of the birds and bees.

The tenderest light that ever was seen

Sifts through the vine-made window screen--

Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls

On home-made carpets and gray-hung walls.

All through June the west wind free

The breath of clover brings to me.

All through the languid July day

I catch the scent of new-mown hay.

The morning-glories and scarlet vine

Over the doorway twist and twine;

And every day, when the house is still,

The humming-bird comes to the window-sill.

In the cunningest chamber under the sun

I sink to sleep when the day is done;

And am waked at morn, in my snow-white bed,

By a singing bird on the roof o'erhead.

Better than treasures brought from Rome,

Are the living pictures I see at home--

My aged father, with frosted hair,

And mother's face, like a painting rare.

Far from the city's dust and heat,

I get but sounds and odors sweet.

Who can wonder I love to stay,

Week after week, here hidden away,

In this sly nook that I love the best--

This little brown house like a ground-bird's nest?