Flame and Shadow

Part 1

Produced by A. Light.

Flame and Shadow

Sara Teasdale

Flame and Shadow

Sara Teasdale

Author of "Rivers to the Sea", "Love Songs", etc.

To E.

"Recois la flamme ou l'ombre De tous mes jours."

Contents

Blue Squills Stars "What Do I Care?" Meadowlarks Driftwood "I Have Loved Hours at Sea" August Moonrise

Memories

Places Old Tunes "Only in Sleep" Redbirds Sunset: St. Louis The Coin The Voice

III

Day and Night Compensation I Remembered "Oh You Are Coming" The Return Gray Eyes The Net The Mystery

In a Hospital

Open Windows The New Moon Eight O'Clock Lost Things Pain The Broken Field The Unseen A Prayer

Spring Torrents "I Know the Stars" Understanding Nightfall "It Is Not a Word" "My Heart Is Heavy" The Nights Remember "Let It Be Forgotten"

The Dark Cup

May Day "Since There Is No Escape" "The Dreams of My Heart" "A Little While" The Garden The Wine In a Cuban Garden "If I Must Go"

VII

In Spring, Santa Barbara White Fog Arcturus Moonlight Morning Song Gray Fog Bells Lovely Chance

VIII

"There Will Come Soft Rains" In a Garden Nahant Winter Stars A Boy Winter Dusk

By the Sea

The Unchanging June Night "Like Barley Bending" "Oh Day of Fire and Sun" "I Thought of You" On the Dunes Spray If Death Is Kind

Thoughts Faces Evening: New York Snowfall The Silent Battle The Sanctuary At Sea Dust The Long Hill

Summer Storm In the End "It Will Not Change" Change Water Lilies "Did You Never Know?" The Treasure The Storm

Songs For Myself

Part 2

XII

The Tree At Midnight Song Making Alone Red Maples Debtor The Wind in the Hemlock

Flame and Shadow

Blue Squills

How many million Aprils came Before I ever knew How white a cherry bough could be, A bed of squills, how blue!

And many a dancing April When life is done with me, Will lift the blue flame of the flower And the white flame of the tree.

Oh burn me with your beauty, then, Oh hurt me, tree and flower, Lest in the end death try to take Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees, O sunlit white and blue, Wound me, that I, through endless sleep, May bear the scar of you.

Stars

Alone in the night On a dark hill With pines around me Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars Over my head, White and topaz And misty red;

Myriads with beating Hearts of fire That aeons Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven Like a great hill, I watch them marching Stately and still,

And I know that I Am honored to be Witness Of so much majesty.

"What Do I Care?"

What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, That my songs do not show me at all? For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire, I am an answer, they are only a call.

But what do I care, for love will be over so soon, Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by, For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent, It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

Meadowlarks

In the silver light after a storm, Under dripping boughs of bright new green, I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.

What have I to fear in life or death Who have known three things: the kiss in the night, The white flying joy when a song is born, And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

Driftwood

My forefathers gave me My spirit's shaken flame, The shape of hands, the beat of heart, The letters of my name.

But it was my lovers, And not my sleeping sires, Who gave the flame its changeful And iridescent fires;

As the driftwood burning Learned its jewelled blaze From the sea's blue splendor Of colored nights and days.

"I Have Loved Hours at Sea"

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, The fragile secret of a flower, Music, the making of a poem That gave me heaven for an hour;

First stars above a snowy hill, Voices of people kindly and wise, And the great look of love, long hidden, Found at last in meeting eyes.

I have loved much and been loved deeply-- Oh when my spirit's fire burns low, Leave me the darkness and the stillness, I shall be tired and glad to go.

Part 3

August Moonrise

The sun was gone, and the moon was coming Over the blue Connecticut hills; The west was rosy, the east was flushed, And over my head the swallows rushed This way and that, with changeful wills. I heard them twitter and watched them dart Now together and now apart Like dark petals blown from a tree; The maples stamped against the west Were black and stately and full of rest, And the hazy orange moon grew up And slowly changed to yellow gold While the hills were darkened, fold on fold To a deeper blue than a flower could hold. Down the hill I went, and then I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy in me On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup You have made me drunk and wild Ever since I was a child, But when have I been sure as now That no bitterness can bend And no sorrow wholly bow One who loves you to the end? And though I must give my breath And my laughter all to death, And my eyes through which joy came, And my heart, a wavering flame; If all must leave me and go back Along a blind and fearful track So that you can make anew, Fusing with intenser fire, Something nearer your desire; If my soul must go alone Through a cold infinity, Or even if it vanish, too, Beauty, I have worshipped you.

Let this single hour atone For the theft of all of me.

Memories II

Places

Places I love come back to me like music, Hush me and heal me when I am very tired; I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired; And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.

I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton, A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees, The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze, And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.

Violet now, in veil on veil of evening The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far; A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are; The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers And heaven is lighting star after star.

Places I love come back to me like music-- Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily; In the ship's deep churning the eerie phosphorescence Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea, And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed, insistent, At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.

Old Tunes

As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose, Float in the garden when no wind blows, Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;

So the old tunes float in my mind, And go from me leaving no trace behind, Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.

But in the instant the airs remain I know the laughter and the pain Of times that will not come again.

I try to catch at many a tune Like petals of light fallen from the moon, Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,

But they float away--for who can hold Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

"Only in Sleep"

Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten-- What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild-- Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child?

Redbirds

Redbirds, redbirds, Long and long ago, What a honey-call you had In hills I used to know;

Redbud, buckberry, Wild plum-tree And proud river sweeping Southward to the sea,

Brown and gold in the sun Sparkling far below, Trailing stately round her bluffs Where the poplars grow--

Redbirds, redbirds, Are you singing still As you sang one May day On Saxton's Hill?

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