Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Sara Teasdale

There's nothing half so real in life as the things you've done... inexorably, unalterably done.

Though I know he loves me, tonight my heart is sad; his kiss was not so wonderful as all the dreams I had.

Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty?

Life is but thought.

It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.

A hush is over everything, Silent as women wait for love; The world is waiting for the spring.

I have no riches but my thoughts. Yet these are wealth enough for me.

I found more joy in sorrow than you could find in joy.

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.

Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation.

Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery.

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup.

Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear because to a clear why.

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

Beauty, more than bitterness, makes the heart break.

No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.

SONG You bound strong sandals on my feet, You gave me bread and wine, And sent me under sun and stars, For all the world was mine. Oh, take the sandals off my feet, You know not what you do, For all my world is in your arms, My sun and stars are you.

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

My soul is a dark ploughed field In the cold rain; My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain.

Faults They came to tell your faults to me, They named them over one by one; I laughed aloud when they were done, I knew them all so well before,-- Oh, they were blind, too blind to see Your faults had made me love you more.

One by one, like leaves from a tree, / All my faiths have forsaken me.

Only by love is life made real.

Take love when love is given, But never think to find it A sure escape from sorrow Or a complete repose.

My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation. It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem. ... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.

It is enough for me by day To walk the same bright earth with him; Enough that over us by night The same great roof of stars is dim. I do not hope to bind the wind Or set a fetter on the sea -- It is enough to feel his love Blow by like music over me.

O beauty, are you not enough; why am I crying after love.

The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you.

I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone. Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea -- We two will pass through death and ages lengthen Before you hear that sound again with me.

I shall not let a sorrow die Until I find the heart of it, Nor let a wordless joy go by Until it talks to me a bit.

Now at last I have come to see what life is, Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun, And the brave victories that seem so splendid Are never really won.

Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

Oh Earth, you gave me all I have, I love you, I love you, - oh what have IThat I can give you in return - Except my body after I die?

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pool singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.

I shall gather myself into my self again, I shall take my scattered selves and make them one.

Stephen kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Stephen’s kiss was lost in jest, Robin’s lost in play, But the kiss in Colin’s eyes Haunts me night and day.

look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be far

How many million Aprils came before I ever knew how white a cherry bough could be, a bed of squills, how blue And many a dancing April when life is done with me, will lift the blue flame of the flower and the white flame of the tree Oh burn me with your beauty then, oh hurt me tree and flower, lest in the end death try to take even this glistening hour.

My heart is a garden tired with autumn.

Life is a frail moth flying Caught in the web of the years that pass.

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

Into my heart's treasury I slipped a coin That Time cannot take Nor a thief purloin- O better than the minting Of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing.

The poet should try to give his poem the quiet swiftness of flame, so that the reader will feel and not think while he is reading. But the thinking will come afterwards.

The window-lights, myriads and myriads,Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.

Joy was a flame in me Too steady to destroy. Lithe as a bending reed, Loving the storm that sways her

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.

There is a quiet at the heart of love, And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.

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.

I am not yours, nor lost in you, not lost, although I long to be. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still a spirit beautiful and bright, yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light.

My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain.

Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up, Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

I am the pool of gold When sunset burns and dies-- You are my deepening skies; Give me your stars to hold

I try to catch at many a tuneLike petals of light fallen from the moon,Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,But they float away - for who can holdYouth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

What we have never had, remains; It is the things we have that go.

The spring is fresh and fearless And every leaf is new, The world is brimmed with moonlight, The lilac brimmed with dew. Here in the moving shadows I catch my breath and sing - My heart is fresh and fearless And over-brimmed with spring.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough; And I shall be more silent and cold hearted than you are now.

If I should see your eyes again, I know how far their look would go -- Back to a morning in the park With sapphire shadows on the snow. Or back to oak trees in the spring When you unloosed my hair and kissed The head that lay against your knees In the leaf shadow's amethyst. And still another shining place We would remember -- how the dun Wild mountain held us on its crest One diamond morning white with sun. But I will turn my eyes from you As women turn to put away The jewels they have worn at night And cannot wear in sober day.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Can I ever know you / Or you know me?

Places I love come back to me like music, / Hush me and heal me when I am very tired.