Spring Night / Sara Teasdale

Spring Night

The park is filled with night and fog,
     The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
     Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
     Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
     Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enought to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, Beauty are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,—
I for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,—
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O, Beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?

---
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
from Love Songs, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Sara Teasdale biography