THE DRUG CLERK
The drug clerk stands behind the counter
Young and dapper and debonair....
Before him burn the great unwinking lights,
The hectic stars of city nights,
Red as hell’s pit, green as a mermaid’s hair.
A queer half-acrid smell is in the air.
Behind him on the shelves in ordered rows
With strange, abbreviated names
Dwell half the facts of life. That young man knows,
Bottled and boxed and powdered here,
Dumb tragedies, deceptions, secret shames,
And comedy and fear.
Sleep slumbers here, like a great quiet sea
Shrunk to this bottle’s compass; sleep that brings
Sweet respite from the teeth of pain
To those poor tossing things
That the white nurses watch so thoughtfully.
And here again
Dwell the shy souls of Maytime flowers
That shall make sweeter still those poignant hours
When wide-eyed youth looks on the face of love.
And, for those others who have found too late
The bitter fruits thereof,
Here are cosmetics, powders, paints,—the arts
That hunted women use to hunt again
With scented flesh for bait.
And here is comfort for the hearts
Of sucking babes in their first teething pain.
Here dwells the substance of huge fervid dreams,
Fantastic, many-colored, shot with gleams
Of ecstasy and madness, that shall come
To some pale, twitching sleeper in a bunk.
And here is courage, cheaply bought
To cure a blue sick funk,
And dearly paid for in the final sum.
Here in this powdered fly is caught
Desire more ravishing than Tarquin’s....
And at last
When the one weary hope is past
Here is the sole escape,
The little postern in the house of breath
Where pallid fugitives keep tryst with death.
All this the drug clerk knows and there he stands,
Young and dapper and debonair ...
He rests a pair of slender hands,
Much manicured, upon the counter there
And speaks: “No, we don’t carry no pomade,
We only cater to the high-class trade.”
Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale was born August 8, 1884, at St. Louis, Missouri, and educated there. After leaving school, she traveled in Europe and the Near East. In 1914, she married Ernst B. Filsinger, who has written several books on foreign trade, and moved to New York City in 1916.
Her first book was a slight volume, Sonnets to Duse (1907), giving little promise of the rich lyricism which was to follow. Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911) contains the first hints of that delicate craftsmanship and authentic loveliness which this poet has brought to such a high pitch. The six monologues which open the volume are splendid delineations written in a blank verse that is as musical as many of her lyrics. At times it suffers from too conscious a cleverness; the dexterity with which Miss Teasdale turns a phrase or twists her last line is frequently too obtrusive to be wholly enjoyable.
Rivers to the Sea (1915) emphasizes this epigrammatic skill, but a greater restraint is here, a warmer spontaneity. The new collection contains at least a dozen unforgettable snatches, lyrics in which the words seem to fall into place without art or effort. Seldom employing metaphor or striking imagery, almost bare of ornament, these poems have the sheer magic of triumphant song. Theirs is an artlessness that is more than an art.
Love Songs (1917) is a collection of Miss Teasdale’s previous melodies for the viola d’amore together with several new tunes. The new poems emphasize the way in which this poet achieves a direct enchantment without verbal subtleties. They also emphasize their superiority to the earlier love lyrics that were written in a mood of literary romance, of artificial moonlit roses, languishing lutes, balconies, passionate guitars—a mood that was not so much erotic as Pierrotic.
Flame and Shadow (1920) is by far the best of her books. Here the beauty is fuller and deeper; an almost mystic radiance plays from these starry verses. Technically, also, this volume marks Miss Teasdale’s greatest advance. The words are chosen with a keener sense of their actual as well as their musical values; the rhythms are much more subtle and varied; the line moves with a greater naturalness. Beneath the symbolism of poems like “Water Lilies” and “The Long Hill,” one is conscious of a finer artistry, a more flexible speech that is all the lovelier for its slight (and logical) irregularities.
Besides her own books, Miss Teasdale has compiled an anthology, The Answering Voice (1917), comprising one hundred love lyrics by women.
NIGHT SONG AT AMALFI[[46]]
I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love—
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.
I asked the darkened sea
Down where the fishermen go—
It answered me with silence,
Silence below.
Oh, I could give him weeping,
Or I could give him song—
But how can I give silence
My whole life long?
SPRING NIGHT[[47]]
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 enough 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?
I SHALL NOT CARE[[48]]
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough;
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.
THE LONG HILL[[49]]
I must have passed the crest a while ago
And now I am going down—
Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,
But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.
All the morning I thought how proud I should be
To stand there straight as a queen,
Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me—
But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.
It was nearly level along the beaten track
And the brambles caught in my gown—
But it’s no use now to think of turning back,
The rest of the way will be only going down.
WATER LILIES[[50]]
If you have forgotten water-lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.