#sara-teasdale — Public Fediverse posts

“Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet, celebrated for her works that explored themes such as love, beauty, nature, and mortality. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she published her first collection of poems in 1907 as a member of “The Potters”—a group of young women authors. She quickly gained recognition for the clarity and simplicity of her writing. Notably, she won a Pullitzer prize in 1918 for the collection Love Songs. Sadly, her life was marked by severe personal struggles, including a lonely marriage, divorce, and declining health, ultimately leading to her tragic death by suicide. She is still remembered as an important voice of the early 20th-century American literature.

In this post we’ll get acquainted with her poem “Spring Rain”, first published in 1917. In many ways typical of her style of writing, the poem is simple yet deep, using imagery from the natural world to reflect on the poet’s emotions and memories. In the first stanza, the sounds of rain and thunder trigger a recollection of a past love; the rest of the poem takes us down the memory lane. You’ll notice that the poem itself is brief, just like a typical spring rain; and the weather described is stormy and intense—just like passionate young love.

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.

The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.

With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say...

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Love Songs by Sara Teasdale – free ebook, downloadable in various formats

Sara Teasdale’s biography – a Poetry Foundation page

COVER PHOTO CREDIT

Image by Levi Guzman via Unsplash

NOTES

I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.  

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‘Morning Song’ by Sara Teasdale

#poem #poetry #literature #sarateasdale

https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/sara-teasdale-poem-morning-song

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.

-- Sara Teasdale, "A Little While"

#TodaysPoem #Poetry #SaraTeasdale

With deepest apologies to #SaraTeasdale:

"Broken things are loveliest,
Broken clouds when dusk is red,
Broken waves where a rainbow rides,
Broken words left half unsaid.

Broken things, broken things--
How quietly they comfort me,
For all I need is a little Scotch tape
To make them how they used to be!"

https://readalittlepoetry.com/2012/11/13/broken-things-by-sara-teasdale/

#ScotchTapeAMoviePlotOrPoem #HashtagGames