IN THE wild soft summer darkness How many a night we two together Sat in the park and watched the Hudson Wearing her lights like golden spangles Glinting on black satin! The rail along the curving pathway Was low in a happy place to let us cross, And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom Sheltered us While your kisses and the flowers, Falling, falling, Tangled my hair. The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky. And now Far off, far off The tree is tremulous again with bloom, For June is here To-night what girl When she goes home, Dreamily, before her mirror, shakes from her hair This year's blossoms clinging in its coils? —Sara Teasdale, in @3The Century.@1 In the wild, hot summer subway What time I journeyed home from work, O Sara, I read your verses. Free and fetterless as any barefoot girl in Arcady, And I detrained at One Hundred and Sixteenth Street And walked One block west, to Riverside Drive. I sat upon a bench, avid for Adventure, Athirst and overyearnful for Romance; And a girl came along And I thought of the blossoms clinging in the coils of her hair, And I said, "Good evening." She said: "You fresh guys ought to be arrested for mashing." And so I sat there, senseful that Romance and such Were not for me. All that paid attention to me were mosquitoes; And I went home, And, dreamily before my mirror, I anointed myself With Oil of Citronella. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HIS PRAYER FOR ABSOLUTION by ROBERT HERRICK THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES: NEWS OF WAR by AESCHYLUS THE ELF CHILD by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS LOVE AND TIME by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ON MEMORIAL DAY by EMMA BERGSTROM THE PATIENT WAYS by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE A TOAST, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF RODNEY'S VICTORY by ROBERT BURNS |