Classic Love Poems
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Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American lyrical poet. Her work is characterized by its simplicity and clarity, her use of classical forms, and her passionate and romantic subject matter. Her first published poem appeared in Reedy’s Mirror, a local newspaper. In 1907, she published her first volume of verse, Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems. In 1918, she won both the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize (which later became the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) and the Poetry Society of America’s annual prize for her collection, Love Songs (1917).
“The Farewell”
by James Tissot, 1871
Handwritten notes
by Sara Teasdale, 1916
Beinecke Library, Yale University
Dreams
I gave my life to another lover,
I gave my love, and all, and all—
But over a dream the past will hover,
Out of a dream the past will call.
I tear myself from sleep with a shiver
But on my breast a kiss is hot,
And by my bed the ghostly giver
Is waiting tho’ I see him not.
Because
Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to draw me unaware—
Take me, for I love you more
Than I ever loved before.
And since the body’s maidenhood
Alone were neither rare nor good
Unless with it I gave to you
A spirit still untrammeled, too,
Take my dreams and take my mind
That were masterless as wind;
And “Master!” I shall say to you
Since you never asked me to.
The Look
Strephon kissed me in the Spring
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes,
Haunts me to this day.
To E.
I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you—
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
on “Teasdale, Sara”
