Saturday, April 23, 2016

Blue Squills / Sara Teasdale


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.

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

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

Sara Teasdale biography

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