Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."

Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace."

And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.

But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair,
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.

For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I seen that each knight smiled.

A Ballad Of The Two Knights

Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes,
Men die by millions now, because God blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.

A Boy

A little while when I am gone
My life will live in music after me,
As spun foam lifted and borne on
After the wave is lost in the full sea.

A while these nights and days will burn
In song with the bright frailty of foam,
Living in light before they turn
Back to the nothingness that is their home.

A Little While

Oh if I were the velvet rose
Upon the red rose vine,
I’d climb to touch his window
And make his casement fine.

And if I were the little bird
That twitters on the tree,
All day I’d sing my love for him
Till he should harken me.

But since I am a maiden
I go with downcast eyes,
And he will never hear the songs
That he has turned to sighs.

And since I am a maiden
My love will never know
That I could kiss him with a mouth
More red than roses blow.

A Maiden

Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.

I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.

A Minuet Of Mozart's

There! See the line of lights,
 A chain of stars down either side the street,
 Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
 A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
 And you could play with it. You smile at me
 As though I were a little dreamy child
 Behind whose eyes the fairies live.... And see,
 The people on the street look up at us
 All envious. We are a king and queen,
 Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
 We watch our subjects with a haughty joy....
 How still you are! Have you been hard at work
 And are you tired to-night? It is so long
 Since I have seen you, four whole days, I think.
 My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts
 Like early flowers in an April meadow,
 And I must give them to you, all of them,
 Before they fade. The people I have met,
 The play I saw, the trivial, shifting things
 That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows
 That hurry, gesturing along a wall,
 Haunting or gay, and yet they all grow real
 And take their proper size here in my heart
 When you have seen them.... There's the Plaza now,
 A lake of light! To-night it almost seems
 That all the lights are gathered in your eyes,
 Drawn somehow toward you. See the open park
 Lying below us with a million lamps
 Scattered in wise disorder like the stars.
 We look down on them as God must look down
 On constellations floating under Him
 Tangled in clouds.... Come, then, and let us walk
 Since we have reached the park. It is our garden,
 All black and blossomless this winter night,
 But we bring April with us, you and I;
 We set the whole world on the trail of spring.
 I think that every path we ever took
 Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire,
 Delicate gold that only fairies see.
 When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks
 And come out on the drowsy park, they look
 Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here
 They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see,
 Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance
 About it in a windy ring and make
 A circle round it only they can cross
 When they come back again!".... Look at the lake,
 Do you remember how we watched the swans
 That night in late October while they slept?
 Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now
 The lake bears only thin reflected lights
 That shake a little. How I long to take
 One from the cold black water, new-made gold
 To give you in your hand! And see, and see,
 There is a star, deep in the lake, a star!
 Oh, dimmer than a pearl, if you stoop down
 Your hand could almost reach it up to me....

 There was a new frail yellow moon to-night,
 I wish you could have had it for a cup
 With stars like dew to fill it to the brim....

 How cold it is! Even the lights are cold;
 They have put shawls of fog around them, see!
 What if the air should grow so dimly white
 That we would lose our way along the paths
 Made new by walls of moving mist receding
 The more we follow.... What a silver night!
 That was our bench the time you said to me
 The long new poem, but how different now,
 How eerie with the curtain of the fog
 Making it strange to all the friendly trees!
 There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls
 Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
 Walk on a little, let me stand here watching
 To see you, too, grown strange to me and far....
 I used to wonder how the park would be
 If one night we could have it all alone,
 No lovers with close arm-encircled waists
 To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
 And now we have it! Every wish comes true!
 We are alone now in a fleecy world;
 Even the stars have gone. We two alone!

A November Night

The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.

But Love that is so bitter
Hath put within her heart
A longing for the scornful knight
Who silent stands apart.

And tho’ the others praise and plead,
She maketh no reply,
Yet for a single word from him,
I ween that she would die.

A Song Of The Princess

Oh would I were the roses, that lie against her hands,
The heavy burning roses she touches as she stands!
Dear hands that hold the roses, where mine would love to be,
Oh leave, oh leave the roses, and hold the hands of me!
She draws the heart from out them, she draws away their breath,
Oh would that I might perish and find so sweet a death!

A Song To Eleonora Duse In "Francesca da Rimini "

Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced,
Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.
Across the lake the skaters
Flew to and fro,
With sharp turns weaving
A frail invisible net.
In ecstacy the earth
Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstacy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstacy we laughed
Drinking the wine of love.
Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
“Oh look!”
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty?

A Winter Bluejay

My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.

God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.

My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.

Sara Teasdale

A Ballad Of The Two Knights

A Boy

A Little While

A Maiden

A Minuet Of Mozart's

A November Night

A Song Of The Princess

A Song To Eleonora Duse In "Francesca da Rimini "

A Winter Bluejay

A Winter Night

Sara Teasdale

Poems for the New Year

A Ballad Of The Two Knights

A Boy

A Little While

A Maiden

A Minuet Of Mozart's

A November Night

A Song Of The Princess

A Song To Eleonora Duse In "Francesca da Rimini "

A Winter Bluejay

A Winter Night