Dreamily reflections of Sara Teasdale

  Det första Pulitzer-priset delades ut 1917. Poesigenren blev en officiell kategori 1922. Dessförinnan hade tre diktsamlingar tilldelats The Columbia University Poetry Society Prize, som var ett specialpris. Det första av dessa förärades Sara Teasdale 1918 för Love songs.
  Det blir ytterligare fem onsdagar med Pulitzervinnare (från 1928 till 1958).

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  Den 8 augusti 1884 föddes Sara Trevor Teasdale i St. Louis, Missouri. Hon reste ofta till Chicago, där hon blev en del av cirkeln kring Poetry magazine och Harriet Monroe. Teasdale publicerade Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems, hennes första volym med verser, år 1907. Hennes andra samling, Helen of Troy, and Other Poems följde 1911 och hennes tredje Rivers to the Sea, 1915. Den fjärde utgivningen gällde Love songs (1917). Källa: Academy of American Poets

Sara Teasdale. Photograph by Gerhard Sisters, ca. 1910.
 Missouri History Museum Photograph and Print Collection. 

Twilight, by Sara Teasdale
(From Love songs. New York : Macmillan, 1917.)

Dreamily over the roofs
The cold spring rain is falling;
Out in the lonely tree
A bird is calling, calling.

Slowly over the earth
The wings of night are falling;
My heart like the bird in the tree
Is calling, calling, calling.

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  "Teasdales dikter har en konsekvent klassisk stil. Hon skrev tekniskt utmärkta, rena, uppenbara texter, vanligtvis i sådana konventionella versformer som quatrains eller sonetter. Hennes utveckling som poet är dock uppenbar i Flame and Shadow (1920), Dark of the Moon (1926) och Stars To-Night (1930). Dikterna i de samlingarna visar en ökande subtilitet och uttrycksfullhet." Citat från Britannica.

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Spring rain, by Sara Teasdale
(From Love songs. New York : Macmillan, 1917.)

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.

The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.

With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say. . . .

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

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  Diktsamlingen har en snygg avslutning. Dikten "A november night" återför scener ur tidigare texter i boken till en behaglig avrundning. Den har också annorlunda form och längd än övriga dikter.

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A november night (extract), by Sara Teasdale
(From Love songs. New York : Macmillan, 1917.)

(...)

I think that every path we ever took
has marked our footprints in mysterious fire,
delicate gold that only fairies see.
When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks
and come out on the drowsy park, they look
along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here
they went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see,
here is their bench, take hands and let us dance
about it in a windy ring and make
a circle round it only they can cross
when they come back again!" . . . Look at the lake --
Do you remember how we watched the swans
that night in late October while they slept?
Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now

the lake bears only thin reflected lights
that shake a little. How I long to take
one from the cold black water -- new-made gold
to give you in your hand! And see, and see,
there is a star, deep in the lake, a star!

(...)