Part 1

Chapter 13,289 wordsPublic domain

DARK OF THE MOON

_BOOKS BY SARA TEASDALE_

SONNETS TO DUSE (out of print) HELEN OF TROY AND OTHER POEMS RIVERS TO THE SEA LOVE SONGS FLAME AND SHADOW

_ANTHOLOGIES_:

THE ANSWERING VOICE: ONE HUNDRED LOVE LYRICS BY WOMEN RAINBOW GOLD: POEMS OLD AND NEW, SELECTED FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

DARK OF THE MOON

BY SARA TEASDALE

NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1926

_Copyright, 1921, by Harper Brothers, Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Century Company, Harcourt Brace and Company, George H. Doran Company, The New Republic, Inc., and The Yale Publishing Association._

_Copyright, 1922, by The Century Company, Harcourt Brace and Company, Vanity Fair Publishing Company, Inc., and George H. Doran Company._

_Copyright, 1923, by Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Century Company, The New Republic, Inc., Gene Derwood and The Atlantic Monthly Company._

_Copyright, 1924, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc., The Century Company, George H. Doran Co., and Harriet Monroe._

_Copyright, 1925, by Harcourt Brace and Company, and The Yale Publishing Association._

_Copyright, 1926, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, The Yale Publishing Association, The New Republic, Inc., The Saturday Review Co., Inc., Charles Scribner’s Sons, and The New York Herald-Tribune, Inc._

_to_ E.

_Thanks are due to the editors of Scribner’s Magazine, The New Republic, The Yale Review, Poetry, The Dial, The Atlantic Monthly, The London Mercury and other publications for their permission to reprint certain of the following poems._

_For permission to set any of the poems to music, application should be made to the author._

_Contents_

_THERE WILL BE STARS_ PAGE ON THE SUSSEX DOWNS 15

AUGUST NIGHT 16

TWO MINDS 17

WORDS FOR AN OLD AIR 18

MOUNTAIN WATER 19

AT TINTAGIL 20

“THERE WILL BE STARS” 21

_PICTURES OF AUTUMN_ AUTUMN 25

SEPTEMBER DAY 26

FONTAINEBLEAU 27

LATE OCTOBER 28

III

_SAND DRIFT_ “BEAUTIFUL, PROUD SEA” 31

LAND’S END 32

SAND DRIFT 33

BLUE STARGRASS 34

SEPTEMBER NIGHT 35

LOW TIDE 36

_PORTRAITS_ EFFIGY OF A NUN 39

THOSE WHO LOVE 41

EPITAPH 42

APPRAISAL 43

THE WISE WOMAN 44

“SHE WHO COULD BIND YOU” 45

“SO THIS WAS ALL” 46

_MIDSUMMER NIGHTS_ TWILIGHT 49

FULL MOON 50

THE FOUNTAIN 51

CLEAR EVENING 52

NOT BY THE SEA 53

MIDSUMMER NIGHT 54

_THE CRYSTAL GAZER_ THE CRYSTAL GAZER 57

THE SOLITARY 58

DAY’S ENDING 59

A REPLY 60

LEISURE 61

“I SHALL LIVE TO BE OLD” 62

WISDOM 63

THE OLD ENEMY 64

VII

_BERKSHIRE NOTES_ WINTER SUN 67

A DECEMBER DAY 68

FEBRUARY TWILIGHT 69

“I HAVE SEEN THE SPRING” 70

WIND ELEGY 71

IN THE WOOD 72

AUTUMN DUSK 73

VIII

_ARCTURUS IN AUTUMN_ ARCTURUS IN AUTUMN 77

“I COULD SNATCH A DAY” 78

AN END 79

FOREKNOWN 80

WINTER 81

WINTER NIGHT SONG 82

NEVER AGAIN 83

THE TUNE 84

_THE FLIGHT_ THE BELOVED 87

“WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU” 88

DEDICATION 89

ON A MARCH DAY 90

LET IT BE YOU 91

THE FLIGHT 92

THERE WILL BE STARS

_On the Sussex Downs_

Over the downs there were birds flying, Far off glittered the sea, And toward the north the weald of Sussex Lay like a kingdom under me.

I was happier than the larks That nest on the downs and sing to the sky, Over the downs the birds flying Were not so happy as I.

It was not you, though you were near, Though you were good to hear and see, It was not earth, it was not heaven It was myself that sang in me.

_August Night_

On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars, In a wood too deep for a single star to look through, You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness, But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew.

I drank of the darkness, I was fed with the honey of fragrance, I was glad of my life, the drawing of breath was sweet; I heard your voice, you said, “Look down, see the glow-worm!” It was there before me, a small star white at my feet.

We watched while it brightened as though it were breathed on and burning, This tiny creature moving over earth’s floor-- “‘_L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle_,’” You said, and no more.

_Two Minds_

Your mind and mine are such great lovers they Have freed themselves from cautious human clay, And on wild clouds of thought, naked together They ride above us in extreme delight; We see them, we look up with a lone envy And watch them in their zone of crystal weather That changes not for winter or the night.

_Words for An Old Air_

Your heart is bound tightly, let Beauty beware, It is not hers to set Free from the snare.

Tell her a bleeding hand Bound it and tied it, Tell her the knot will stand Though she deride it;

One who withheld so long All that you yearned to take, Has made a snare too strong For Beauty’s self to break.

_Mountain Water_

You have taken a drink from a wild fountain Early in the year; There is nowhere to go from the top of a mountain But down, my dear; And the springs that flow on the floor of the valley Will never seem fresh or clear For thinking of the glitter of the mountain water In the feathery green of the year.

_At Tintagil_

Iseult, Iseult, by the long waterways Watching the wintry moon, white as a flower, I have remembered how once in Tintagil You heard the tread of Time hour after hour.

By casements hung with night, while all your women slept You turned toward Brittany, awake, alone, In the high chamber hushed, save where the candle dripped With the slow patient sound of blood on stone.

The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you, And all the tragic tunes that love can play, Yet with no woman born would you have changed your lot, Though there were greater queens who had been gay.

“_There Will Be Stars_”

There will be stars over the place forever; Though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost, Every time the earth circles her orbit On the night the autumn equinox is crossed, Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep; There will be stars over the place forever, There will be stars forever, while we sleep.

PICTURES OF AUTUMN

_Autumn_

(Parc Monceau)

I shall remember only these leaves falling Small and incessant in the still air, Yellow leaves on the dark green water resting And the marble Venus there-- Is she pointing to her breasts or trying to hide them? There is no god to care.

The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water And its reflection seems Lost in the mass of leaves and unavailing As a dream lost among dreams; The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water A dream lost among dreams.

_September Day_

(Pont de Neuilly)

The Seine flows out of the mist And into the mist again; The trees lean over the water, The small leaves fall like rain.

The leaves fall patiently, Nothing remembers or grieves; The river takes to the sea The yellow drift of the leaves.

Milky and cold is the air, The leaves float with the stream, The river comes out of a sleep And goes away in a dream.

_Fontainebleau_

Interminable palaces front on the green parterres, And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral Glide down the gilded stairs, The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel taps That long ago were theirs.

But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine, The geometric gardens are desolately gay; The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis On a lost October day.

The aisles of the garden lead into the forest, The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves, Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover, But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves, Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.

_Late October_

(Bois de Boulogne)

Listen, the damp leaves on the walks are blowing With a ghost of sound; Is it a fog or is it a rain dripping From the low trees to the ground?

If I had gone before, I could have remembered Lilacs and green after-noons of May; I chose to wait, I chose to hear from autumn Whatever she has to say.

III

SAND DRIFT

“_Beautiful, Proud Sea_”

Careless forever, beautiful proud sea, You laugh in happy thunder all alone, You fold upon yourself, you dance your dance Impartially on drift-weed, sand or stone.

You make us believe that we can outlive death, You make us for an instant, for your sake, Burn, like stretched silver of a wave, Not breaking, but about to break.

_Land’s End_

The shores of the world are ours, the solitary Beaches that bear no fruit, nor any flowers, Only the harsh sea-grass that the wind harries Hours on unbroken hours.

No one will envy us these empty reaches At the world’s end, and none will care that we Leave our lost footprints where the sand forever Takes the unchanging passion of the sea.

_Sand Drift_

I thought I should not walk these dunes again, Nor feel the sting of this wind-bitten sand, Where the coarse grasses always blow one way, Bent, as my thoughts are, by an unseen hand.

I have returned; where the last wave rushed up The wet sand is a mirror for the sky A bright blue instant, and along its sheen The nimble sandpipers run twinkling by.

Nothing has changed; with the same hollow thunder The waves die in their everlasting snow-- Only the place we sat is drifted over, Lost in the blowing sand, long, long ago.

_Blue Stargrass_

If we took the old path In the old field The same gate would stand there That will never yield.

Where the sun warmed us With a cloak made of gold, The rain would be falling And the wind would be cold;

And we would stop to search In the wind and the rain, But we would not find the stargrass By the path again.

_September Night_

We walked in the dew, in the drowsy starlight To the sleepless, sleepy sound Of insects singing in the low sea-meadows For miles and miles around; With a wheel and a whirr the resistless rhythm Trembled incessantly; Antares was red in the sky before us, And behind us, the blackness of the sea.

_Low Tide_

The birds are gathering over the dunes, Swerving and wheeling in shifting flight, A thousand wings sweep darkly by Over the dunes and out of sight.

Why did you bring me down to the sea With the gathering birds and the fish-hawk flying, The tide is low and the wind is hard, Nothing is left but the old year dying.

I wish I were one of the gathering birds, Two sharp black wings would be good for me-- When nothing is left but the old year dying, Why did you bring me down to the sea?

PORTRAITS

_Effigy of a Nun_

(Sixteenth Century)

Infinite gentleness, infinite irony Are in this face with fast-sealed eyes, And round this mouth that learned in loneliness How useless their wisdom is to the wise.

In her nun’s habit carved, patiently, lovingly, By one who knew the ways of womankind, This woman’s face still keeps, in its cold wistful calm, All of the subtle pride of her mind.

These long patrician hands, clasping the crucifix, Show she had weighed the world, her will was set; These pale curved lips of hers, holding their hidden smile, Once having made their choice, knew no regret.

She was of those who hoard their own thoughts carefully, Feeling them far too dear to give away, Content to look at life with the high, insolent Air of an audience watching a play.

If she was curious, if she was passionate She must have told herself that love was great, But that the lacking it might be as great a thing If she held fast to it, challenging fate.

She who so loved herself and her own warring thoughts, Watching their humorous, tragic rebound, In her thick habit’s fold, sleeping, sleeping, Is she amused at dreams she has found?

Infinite tenderness, infinite irony Are hidden forever in her closed eyes, Who must have learned too well in her long loneliness How empty wisdom is, even to the wise.

_Those Who Love_

Those who love the most, Do not talk of their love, Francesca, Guinevere, Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise, In the fragrant gardens of heaven Are silent, or speak if at all Of fragile, inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know Who loved one man from her youth, Against the strength of the fates Fighting in somber pride, Never spoke of this thing, But hearing his name by chance, A light would pass over her face.

_Epitaph_

Serene descent, as a red leaf’s descending When there is neither wind nor noise of rain, But only autumn air and the unending Drawing of all things to the earth again:

So be it; let the snow sift deep and cover All that was drunken once with light and air; The earth will not regret her tireless lover, Nor he awake to know she does not care.

_Appraisal_

Never think she loves him wholly, Never believe her love is blind, All his faults are locked securely In a closet of her mind; All his indecisions folded Like old flags that time has faded, Limp and streaked with rain, And his cautiousness like garments Frayed and thin, with many a stain-- Let them be, oh let them be, There is treasure to outweigh them, His proud will that sharply stirred, Climbs as surely as the tide, Senses strained too taut to sleep, Gentleness to beast and bird, Humor flickering hushed and wide As the moon on moving water, And a tenderness too deep To be gathered in a word.

_The Wise Woman_

She must be rich who can forego An hour so jewelled with delight, She must have treasuries of joy That she can draw on day and night, She must be very sure of heaven-- Or is it only that she feels How much more safe it is to lack A thing that time so often steals.

“_She Who Could Bind You_”

She who could bind you Could bind fire to a wall; She who could hold you Could hold a waterfall; She who could keep you Could keep the wind from blowing On a warm spring night With a low moon glowing.

“_So This Was All_”

So this was all there was to the great play She came so far to act in, this was all-- Except the short last scene and the slow fall Of the final curtain, that might catch half-way, As final curtains do, and leave the grey Lorn end of things too long exposed. The hall Clapped faintly, and she took her curtain call, Knowing how little she had left to say. And in the pause before the last act started, Slowly unpinning the roses she had worn, She reconsidered lines that had been said, And found them hardly worthy the high-hearted Ardor that she had brought, nor the bright, torn, Roses that shattered round her, dripping red.

MIDSUMMER NIGHTS

_Twilight_

(Nahant)

There was an evening when the sky was clear, Ineffably translucent in its blue; The tide was falling and the sea withdrew In hushed and happy music from the sheer Shadowy granite of the cliffs; and fear Of what life may be, and what death can do, Fell from us like steel armor, and we knew The wisdom of the Law that holds us here. It was as though we saw the Secret Will, It was as though we floated and were free; In the south-west a planet shone serenely, And the high moon, most reticent and queenly, Seeing the earth had darkened and grown still, Misted with light the meadows of the sea.

_Full Moon_

(Santa Barbara)

I listened, there was not a sound to hear In the great rain of moonlight pouring down, The eucalyptus trees were carved in silver, And a light mist of silver lulled the town.

I saw far off the grey Pacific bearing A broad white disk of flame, And on the garden-walk a snail beside me Tracing in crystal the slow way he came.

_The Fountain_

Fountain, fountain, what do you say Singing at night alone? “It is enough to rise and fall Here in my basin of stone.”

But are you content as you seem to be So near the freedom and rush of the sea? “I have listened all night to its laboring sound, It heaves and sags, as the moon runs round; Ocean and fountain, shadow and tree, Nothing escapes, nothing is free.”

_Clear Evening_

The crescent moon is large enough to linger A little while after the twilight goes, This moist midsummer night the garden perfumes Are earth and apple, dewy pine and rose.

Over my head four new-cut stars are glinting And the inevitable night draws on; I am alone, the old terror takes me, Evenings will come like this when I am gone;

Evenings on evenings, years on years forever-- Be taut, my spirit, close upon and keep The scent, the brooding chill, the gliding fire-fly, A poem learned before I fall asleep.

_Not by the Sea_

Not by the sea, but somewhere in the hills, Not by the sea, but in the uplands surely There must be rest where a dim pool demurely Watches all night the stern slow-moving skies;

Not by the sea, that never was appeased, Not by the sea, whose immemorial longing Shames the tired earth where even longing dies, Not by the sea that bore Iseult and Helen, But in a dark green hollow of the hills There must be sleep, even for sleepless eyes.

_Midsummer Night_

Midsummer night without a moon, but the stars In a serene bright multitude were there, Even the shyest ones, even the faint motes shining Low in the north, under the Little Bear.

When I have said, “This tragic farce I play in Has neither dignity, delight nor end,” The holy night draws all its stars around me, I am ashamed, I have betrayed my Friend.

THE CRYSTAL GAZER

_The Crystal Gazer_

I shall gather myself into myself again, I shall take my scattered selves and make them one, Fusing them into a polished crystal ball Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent, Watching the future come and the present go, And the little shifting pictures of people rushing In restless self-importance to and fro.

_The Solitary_

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years, I have less need now than when I was young To share myself with every comer Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

It is one to me that they come or go If I have myself and the drive of my will, And strength to climb on a summer night And watch the stars swarm over the hill.

Let them think I love them more than I do, Let them think I care, though I go alone; If it lifts their pride, what is it to me Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone.

_Day’s Ending_

(Tucson)

Aloof as aged kings, Wearing like them the purple, The mountains ring the mesa Crowned with a dusky light; Many a time I watched That coming-on of darkness Till stars burned through the heavens Intolerably bright.

It was not long I lived there But I became a woman Under those vehement stars. For it was there I heard For the first time my spirit Forging an iron rule for me, As though with slow cold hammers Beating out word by word: