Flame and Shadow

Sara Teasdale

Description

Flame and Shadow (1920) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. The poet’s fifth collection, published two years after she won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, death, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience, Flame and Shadow revels in the mystery of existence itself. “What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, / That my songs do not show me at all?” Content to depict the rhythms of nature, the songs of birds, and “the silver light after a storm,” Teasdale’s poetry dissolves the poet’s ego in order to access a deeper well of creative energy: “For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent, / It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.” In “There Will Come Soft Rains,” a poem born from a decade of war and widespread disease, Teasdale imagines a posthuman world where beauty and harmony continue despite our disappearance: “Robins will wear their feathery fire / Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war…” For Teasdale, a poet who merges an abiding affection for flora and fauna with a critical distance from human affairs, the belief in the life of the world, with or without us, is enough. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sara Teasdale’s Flame and Shadow is a classic work of American poetry reimagined for modern readers.

Sujets

• American poetry
• List of poets from the United States
• 20th century
• Poetry
• American

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 21 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513224763
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Flame and Shadow
Sara Teasdale
 
Flame and Shadow was first published in 1920.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513298641 | E-ISBN 9781513224763
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks.com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
 
To E.
“Recois la flamme ou l’ombre
De tous mes jours.”
 
C ONTENTS I B LUE S QUILLS S TARS “W HAT D O I C ARE ?” M EADOWLARKS D RIFTWOOD “I H AVE L OVED H OURS AT S EA ” A UGUST M OONRISE M EMORIES II P LACES O LD T UNES “O NLY IN S LEEP ” R EDBIRDS S UNSET : S T . L OUIS T HE C OIN T HE V OICE III D AY AND N IGHT C OMPENSATION I R EMEMBERED “O H Y OU A RE C OMING ” T HE R ETURN G RAY E YES T HE N ET T HE M YSTERY I N A H OSPITAL IV O PEN W INDOWS T HE N EW M OON E IGHT O’C LOCK L OST T HINGS P AIN T HE B ROKEN F IELD T HE U NSEEN A P RAYER V S PRING T ORRENTS “I K NOW THE S TARS ” U NDERSTANDING N IGHTFALL “I T I S N OT A W ORD ” “M Y H EART I S H EAVY ” T HE N IGHTS R EMEMBER “L ET I T B E F ORGOTTEN ” T HE D ARK C UP VI M AY D AY “S INCE T HERE I S N O E SCAPE ” “T HE D REAMS OF M Y H EART ” “A L ITTLE W HILE ” T HE G ARDEN T HE W INE I N A C UBAN G ARDEN “I F I M UST G O ” VII I N S PRING , S ANTA B ARBARA W HITE F OG A RCTURUS M OONLIGHT M ORNING S ONG G RAY F OG B ELLS L OVELY C HANCE VIII “T HERE W ILL C OME S OFT R AINS ” I N A G ARDEN N AHANT W INTER S TARS A B OY W INTER D USK B Y THE S EA IX T HE U NCHANGING J UNE N IGHT “L IKE B ARLEY B ENDING ” “O H D AY OF F IRE AND S UN ” “I T HOUGHT OF Y OU ” O N THE D UNES S PRAY I F D EATH I S K IND X T HOUGHTS F ACES E VENING : N EW Y ORK S NOWFALL T HE S ILENT B ATTLE T HE S ANCTUARY A T S EA D UST T HE L ONG H ILL XI S UMMER S TORM I N THE E ND “I T W ILL N OT C HANGE ” C HANGE W ATER L ILIES “D ID Y OU N EVER K NOW ?” T HE T REASURE T HE S TORM S ONGS F OR M YSELF XII T HE T REE A T M IDNIGHT S ONG M AKING A LONE R ED M APLES D EBTOR T HE W IND IN THE H EMLOCK
 
I
 
B LUE S QUILLS
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.
O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you.
 
S TARS
Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.
 
“W HAT D O I C ARE ?”
What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.
But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.
 
M EADOWLARKS
In the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
What have I to fear in life or death
Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,
The white flying joy when a song is born,
And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.
 
D RIFTWOOD
My forefathers gave me
My spirit’s shaken flame,
The shape of hands, the beat of heart,
The letters of my name.
But it was my lovers,
And not my sleeping sires,
Who gave the flame its changeful
And iridescent fires;
As the driftwood burning
Learned its jewelled blaze
From the sea’s blue splendor
Of colored nights and days.
 
“I H AVE L OVED H OURS AT S EA ”
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