Flame and shadow / Sara Teasdale [electronic text]

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?

SUNSET: ST. LOUIS

HUSHED in the smoky haze of summer sunset, When I came home again from far-off places, How many times I saw my western city Dream by her river.

Then for an hour the water wore a mantle Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise Under the tall and darkened arches bearing Gray, high-flung bridges.

Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples Flickered with fire up the slope to westward, And old warehouses poured their purple shadows Across the levee.

High over them the black train swept with thunder, Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers Resting in twilight.

THE COIN

INTO my heart's treasury I slipped a coin That time cannot take Nor a thief purloin,— Oh better than the minting Of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing.

THE VOICE

ATOMS as old as stars, Mutation on mutation, Millions and millions of cells Dividing yet still the same, From air and changing earth, 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 shepherd, 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 wisdom of many life-times I hear them cry: "Forever Seek for Beauty, she only Fights with man against Death!"