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Flame and Shadow

Sara Teasdale

Top 10 Best Quotes

“There Will Come Soft Rains 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.”

“Down the hill I went, and then, I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy ”

“Pain Waves are the sea's white daughters, And raindrops the children of rain, But why for my shimmering body Have I a mother like Pain? Night is the mother of stars, And wind the mother of foam— The world is brimming with beauty, But I must stay at home.”

“Winter Stars I went out at night alone; The young blood flowing beyond the sea Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings— I bore my sorrow heavily. But when I lifted up my head From shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east Burn steadily as long ago. From windows in my father's house, Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, I watched Orion as a girl Above another city's lights. Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, The world's heart breaks beneath its wars, All things are changed, save in the east The faithful beauty of the stars.”

“I almost gave my life long ago for a thing That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes— It is strange how often a heart must be broken Before the years can make it wise.”

“The Unchanging Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing From the immense blue circle of the sea, And the soft thunder where long waves whiten— These were the same for Sappho as for me. Two thousand years—much has gone by forever, Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men— But here on the beaches that time passes over The heart aches now as then.”

“The Storm I thought of you when I was wakened By a wind that made me glad and afraid Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea That the great trees made. One thought in my mind went over and over While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned— I thought it was you who had come to find me, You were the wind.”

“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”

“If I Must Go If I must go to heaven's end Climbing the ages like a stair, Be near me and forever bend With the same eyes above me there; Time will fly past us like leaves flying, We shall not heed, for we shall be Beyond living, beyond dying, Knowing and known unchangeably.”

“Blue Squills 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.”

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Book Keywords:

nature, stars, faerie, faery, suffering, sorrow, time, wisdom, fae, fay, social-anxiety, pain, sadness, night, death, war, poetry, beauty, depression, heartbreak

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