Sara Teasdale: Stars Forever

Happy Birthday
to Missouri Poet Sara Teasdale
(born in St. Louis, August 8, 1884 - died January 29, 1933):

"There will be stars forever; while we sleep."

Photo credit: Man Of La Book: A Bookish Blog

Sarah Trevor Teasdale
[Christened Sarah Trevor Teasdale,
but later dropped the final "h"]

I would have stood on your hot
Missouri porch for hours,
holding my bouquet of flowers
to show you that my thirst
for your affection was preferable
to suitors Lindsay and Ernst.

Although the bright Missouri sun
would the flowers wilt, I will stay
Till you kissed me away.
A puff across your hand,
direct to me, to show you understand,
or is your sweet breath to send
my fate into the winds.

by Robert Manchester (1943 - 2022)
Read more at Your Daily Poem & "Colors of Summer"

Collected Poems

More poetry by Teasdale on FN & QK
And on THEINKBRAIN: Teasdale Poetry Blog

Teasdale & Eliot, Begin & End

Floor Mosaics
at the Kansas City Airport

"There will come a time
when you believe everything is finished.
That will be the beginning."

from Lonely on the Mountain, 1980
by Louis L'Amour (1908 – 1988)

The L'Amour quotation is new to me, and
very similar to these two old favorites
from Teasdale and Eliot:

1. Sara Teasdale
"Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun"

and

2. T. S. Eliot:
"to make an end is to make a beginning"

As I mentioned on my earlier post,
"Body Image, Again and Still,"
I keep mixing them up.
You can see why!

Thus I am creating here a permanent reminder:

1.
At Midnight
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.

Even love that I built
my spirit's house for,

Comes like a brooding
and a baffled guest,

And music and men's praise
and even laughter

Are not so good as rest.

by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)
from Flame and Shadow, 1920

2.
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them. . . .

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. . .

by T.S. Eliot
from "Little Gidding" (Part V), 1942

About the Kansas City medallions:

“We all exist in an electromagnetically charged existence through the dynamic of going around in this circular pattern. . . . it’s a new iteration for the medallions as relics or mementos of what has been. They’re a fragment of a whole. So they’re sort of in a limbo state, like passengers are in an aircraft.”
~ Artist Andrew Ginzel

Also ~ on Facebook

The Range of Joy

Blue Jay Patrol

A Winter Blue Jay

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 ecstasy the earth
Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstasy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstasy 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?

Joy

Joy
I am wild, I will sing to the trees,
I will sing to the stars in the sky,
I love, I am loved, he is mine,
Now at last I can die!

I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
I have heart-fire and singing to give,
I can tread on the grass or the stars,
Now at last I can live!

both poems by Sara Teasdale
both illustrations by Charley Harper

Bird Watcher

Coincidental blue jay connection:
"You know what they say about blue jays?
They say blue jays go to hell on Fridays. . . .
William Faulkner said it one of his books."

from the novel Theo of Golden (256)
by Allen Levi

A couple more
Sara Teasdale poems,
short and sweet:

The Look

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

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.

My Dust Will Find a Voice

Sara Teasdale for All Saints Day

The Answer

When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:

“Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion—
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her—
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy.”

I Could Snatch a Day

I could snatch a day out of the late autumn
And set it trembling like forgotten springs.
There would be sharp blue skies and new leaves shining,
And flying shadows cast by flying wings.

I could take the heavy wheel of the world and break it --
But we sit brooding while the ashes fall,
Cowering over an old fire that blackens,
Waiting for nothing at all.

Both poems by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

Whatever Autumn Has to Say

Sara Teasdale for Halloween

Cartoon from Cat Cafe

Sometimes for Halloween, instead of a full moon, you get a waning crescent that does not even appear until 4 a.m., long after the trick - or - treaters have gone to bed.

Here's a poem in celebration of what we used to call "the fingernail moon" (no, not the one on your thumbnail, the one in the sky)!

Dusk in Autumn

The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches likes an eye.

And thro’ the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,—
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake.

found in the collection:
Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems (1907)

Thanks to Cathy Lindsay & Halloweenaholic

Late October
Bois de Boulogne

Listen, the damp leaves on the walks are
blowing
With a ghost of sound;
Is it a fog or is it a rain dripping
From the low trees to the ground?

If I had gone before, I could have remembered
Lilacs and green after-noons of May;
I chose to wait, I chose to hear from autumn
Whatever she has to say.

found in the collection:
Dark of the Moon (1926)

both poems by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

~ Previous ~ Crescents ~

Magi and Fruitcake

My brother Bruce sent me this cartoon
~ perfect for Epiphany ~
along with the suggestion for those
who fell behind in their baking this year:
"You don't have to wait for next Christmas.
Make a Valentines fruitcake,
or a St. Patrick's Day fruitcake!"

. . . but no one would turn away my fruitcake,
made with orange slice gumdrops!

Orange Slice Gumdrop Cake
Recipe from Midwest Living Magazine, December 1992

1/2 lb orange slice candy, cut up (1 1/2 cups) -- mixed with 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup buttermilk

3/4 cup chopped dates
1 1/4 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts pecans or almonds

Bring butter and eggs to room temperature; then beat butter, sugar, and eggs in large bowl.

Add the 1 1/2 cups flour and buttermilk alternately to egg mixture, beating after each addition.

Fold in dates, coconut and nuts; then gumdrops.

Grease and flour 1 regular sized loaf pan (or use baking spray) and spread batter evenly.

Bake at 300°F for about 1 hour and 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Or you can use 3 medium - small loaf pans (not tiny) and bake for a slightly shorter period.

If you want to glaze the cake(s), stir together 1 cup of powdered sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice until smooth, and pour over the hot cakes. (I never do this step; unglazed is fine with me.)

Cool in pans on wire racks for 20 minutes, remove from pans, cool completely.

Wrap each cake in plastic wrap or decorative holiday ziplock baggie.

Store in refrigerator for up to 4 weeks, or eat right away. Serve at room temperature.

****************

And now, an epiphanic poem on the serious side:
Will Peace Come Forever?

We traveled together.
It took me two weeks to understand
what Ahmad was saying.
We studied the stars. Forever I
love the desert sky at night.
The stars, so strong, so guiding,
so, yes so bright, tonight and last night,
so bright.

To Bethlehem we agreed.
I saw an angel in my sleep last night.
He said that people will talk of
this trip for thousands of years.
I asked if the King we seek is really
that great. He smiled and muttered in
an angel's way.
Tears flowed down
his cheeks.

I love sinking my feet into the sand
knowing that each step takes me
closer
to the King. I watch the star; we all watch
the star.
Luand is tall and he smells of his gift
frankincense. He glides along,
praying, praying that we will not
die in the dessert.
But Ahmad, the star seeker, the star
reader knows we will not.
And a thousand years from now,
who knows,
maybe someone will wonder where the
myrrh came from.

But oh I am happy, so happy to
follow this star and pray and
laugh in the night.

Catherine DeLong ~ writer ~ reader ~ friend
2004 Christmas

Some additional Magi / Epiphany Poems
to take a look at in greater detail when time allows:

Elizabeth Coatsworth

T. S. Eliot

Christopher Pilling

Muriel Spark

Sara Teasdale

Evelyn Waugh

Like Mardi Gras Beads

"Look for a lovely thing
and you will find it,
It is not far --
It never will be far."
Sara Teasdale

“The truest answer
to a question that really matters
can be found very close.”
Alice Walker

The most detailed model of ONE human cell to date,
obtained using x-rays, nuclear magnetic resonance,
and cryoelectron microscopy data sets.
Aren't we all just so filled with magical possibilities?

As Emily Dickinson said many years ago
about the use of microscopes:
" 'Faith' is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!"

I love what my friend Gary said
about this dazzling image:
"This is really quite difficult to comprehend.
We are a walking, talking, breathing universe.
All within our cells.
Each cell is so complex, and there are 30 trillion of them.
Like stars in the universe."

And Gary's friend Sue said:
"i spilled the tangled baubles of my gramma's
jewelry box onto the dresser top.
and i'll never find that other earring ❤"

Mardi Gras ~ Cat Mask ~ Previous Post

Also . . . for Ash Wednesday

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy.
I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.
If you want a religion to make you feel really
comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
C. S. Lewis

Next time, Rosary Beads . . .

Three More Wise Ones

Words of Ancestors ~ Bakhytzhan Myrzakhmetov
Canvas & oil, 1997

1. The Three Kings

Where do we go from here?
We left our country,
Bore gifts,
Followed a star.
We were questioned.
We answered.
We reached our objective.
We enjoyed the trip.
Then we came back by a different way.
And now the people are demonstrating in the streets.
They say they don’t need the Kings any more.
They did very well in our absence.
Everything was all right without us.
They are out on the streets with placards:
Wise Men? What’s wise about them?
There are plenty of Wise Men,
And who needs them?—and so on.

Perhaps they will be better off without us,
But where do we go from here?

~ Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006)

Silk Road ~ Sagyntai Alimbetov
Canvas & oil, 1998

2. Christmas Carol

The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine;
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
And gifts of precious wine.

The shepherds came from out the north,
Their coats were brown and old;
They brought Him little new-born lambs—
They had not any gold.

The wise men came from out the east,
And they were wrapped in white;
The star that led them all the way
Did glorify the night.

The angels came from heaven high,
And they were clad with wings;
And lo, they brought a joyful song
The host of heaven sings.

The kings they knocked upon the door,
The wise men entered in,
The shepherds followed after them
To hear the song begin.

The angels sang through all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.

~ Sara Teasdale (1884- 1933)

Golden Steppes ~ Kazakbay Azhibekuly (b 1966)
Canvas & oil, 1997

3. St. Helen’s Prayer
to the Three Magi on the Feast of the Epiphany

Everyone in Jerusalem remarked on Helena’s vigour. The old lady was positively indefatigable, they all said. But in truth she was very weary. Winter set in. The convent was exposed, damp and chill. It was not thus, in Dalmatia, that she had planned her old age. She seemed to have come to the end of her questions. No one was helpful. No one was hopeful. At Christmas she had not the strength to ride out with the procession to Bethlehem. She went to communion in the convent chapel and that day allowed the nuns to make a fuss of her, spending the feast crouched over a wood fire which they lit for her in her room.

But by Twelfth Night she rallied and on the eve set out by litter along the five rough miles to the shrine of the Nativity. There was no throng of pilgrims. [Bishop] Macarius and his people kept Epiphany in their own church. Only the little community of Bethlehem greeted her and led her to the room they had prepared. She rested there dozing until an hour before dawn when they called her and led her out under the stars, then down onto the stable-cave, where they made a place for her on the women’s side of the small, packed congregation.

The low vault was full of lamps and the air close and still. Silver bells announced the coming of the three vested, bearded monks, who prostrated themselves before the altar. So the long liturgy began.

Helena knew little Greek and her thoughts were not in the words nor anywhere in the immediate scene. She forgot even her quest and was dead to everything except the swaddled child long ago and those three royal sages who had come from so far to adore him.

“This is my day, she thought, “and these are my kind.”

Perhaps she apprehended that her fame, like theirs, would live in one historic act of devotion; that she too had emerged from a kind of ‘ουτοπία’ [Utopia] or nameless realm and would vanish like them in the sinking nursery fire-light among the picture-books and the day’s toys.

“Like me,” she said to them, “you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way. For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed among the disconcerted stars.

“How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculations, where the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!

“You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you. What did you do? You stopped to call on King Herod. Deadly exchange of compliments in which there began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!

“Yet you came, and were not turned away. You too found room at the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life there was room for you too. You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass.

“You are my especial patrons,” said Helena, “and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

“Dear cousins, pray for me,” said Helena, “and for my poor overloaded son [the Emperor Constantine himself, who was still unbaptized]. May he, too, before the end find kneeling-space in the straw. Pray for the great, lest they perish utterly. And pray for Lactantius and Marcias and the young poets of Trèves and for the souls of my wild, blind ancestors; for their sly foe Odysseus and for the great Longinus.

“For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

~ Evelyn Waugh (1903 - 1966)
from Chapter 9 ~ “Epiphany” ~ of his novel Helena

Thanks to Peter Bunder
for including this selection for Epiphany
in the Good Shepherd Bulletin
on Sunday, 14 January 2018

************************

All artwork above from the
President`s Center of Culture & Museum
Astana, Kazakhstan

************************

More Magi
Medellín Magi
Magi and Fruitcake
"The Magi" ~ Peter, Paul & Mary

The Faithful Beauty of the Stars

Ellie & Aidan

Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. (p 41)

from O Pioneers! (1913)
by Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)
More prose

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.

By Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)
More poetry

More ~ about ~ Orion
from Denver & the BBC

And upcoming posts
"The Orion Connection"
@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
&
"How to Find Orion"
@Kitti's List

Also, a good night for
"Moon Song" ~ Patty Griffin:

" Drank all I could swallow
Now the moon's gonna' follow me home . . . "

Look For A Lovely Thing

Winter Wonderland Right Outside the Window

Stars over snow,
And in the west a planet
Swinging below a star --
Look for a lovely thing
and you will find it,
It is not far --
It never will be far.

by Sara Teasdale

SEE ALSO MY FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST:
JANUARY 14th, 2010: EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US

KITTI CARRIKER: A FORTNIGHTLY LITERARY
BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com

Belated Valentine

As I was saying just the other day:
"Look for a lovely thing
and you will find it,

It is not far --
It never will be far."
Sara Teasdale

Brother Sun Sister Moon

Good Morning Sun!

A Diamond of a Morning

Morning Song

A diamond of a morning
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.

O white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free.
Good Night Moon!

Where Moonlight Burned

Moonlight

It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old.

It Takes A Village!

I Saw A Planet Shine

Dusk

I saw above a sea of hills
A solitary planet shine,
And there was no one, near or far,
To keep the world from being mine.”

~~ All Three Poems by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) ~~

Autumnal Equinox: Stars Forever

THERE WILL BE STARS

There will be stars
over the place forever;

Though the house we loved
and the street we loved are lost,

Every time the earth
circles her orbit

On the night the autumn
equinox is crossed,

Two stars we knew,
poised on the peak of midnight

Will reach their zenith;
stillness will be deep;

There will be stars
over the place forever,

There will be stars
forever; while we sleep.

by Sara Teasdale
Missouri Poet (1884 - 1933)
First Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1918

Pass Nothing By on May Day

~ May Bouquet at Grandma's Getaway ~

May Day

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

*************

~ Marion's Blue & White China ~
See the miniature set?! ~ [lower left]

~ All Previous May Day Posts ~