Moon's ending - Sara Teasdale

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
in the dawn clouds flying,
how good to go, light into light, and still
giving light, dying.

A prayer - Sara Teasdale

When I am dying, let me know

That I loved the blowing snow

Although it stung like whips;

That I loved all lovely things

And I tried to take their stings

With gay unembittered lips;

That I loved with all my strength,

To my soul's full depth and length,

Careless if my heart must break,

That I sang as children sing

Fitting tunes to everything,

Loving life for its own sake.

Sleepless - Sara Teasdale

If I could have your

arms tonight-

But half the world and the broken sea

Lie between you and me.

The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,

Beating all night against the barren stone,

The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard

Makes me more alone.

If you were here, if you were only here-

My blood cries out to you all night in vain

As sleepless as the rain.

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange, my youth.

Sara Teasdale

If death is kind - Sara Teasdale

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free

Alone - Sara Teasdale

I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give—
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.

I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;

With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.

The Voice - Sara Teasdale

Atoms as old as stars,

mutation on mutation,

millions and millions of cells

dividing yet still the same,

from ancient Eastern rivers,

from turquoise tropic seas,

unto myself I came.

My spirit like my flesh

sprang from a thousand sources,

from cave-man, hunter and sheperd,

from Karnak, Cyprus, Rome;

The living thoughts in me

spring from dead men and women,

forgotten time out of mind

and many as bubbles of foam.

Here for a moment's space

into the light out of darkness,

I come and they come with me

finding words with my breath;

From the windsom of many life-times

I hear them cry: "Forever

Seek for Beauty, she only

Fight with man against Death!"

Since there is no escape - Sara Teasdale

My body will be utterly destroyed,

This hand I love as I have loved a friend,

This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;

Since there is no escape even for me

Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:

The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea

And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --

Since darkness waits for me, then all the more

Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore

In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;

In these few hours of light I lift my head;

Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead

If there is any way to baffle death.

I have loved hours at sea - Sara Teasdale

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.