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Home  »  Modern American Poetry  »  Spring Night

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

Sara Teasdale1884–1933

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 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?