Moonlight

Posted by on October 25, 2013 in Poetry | 2 Comments

Moonlight
Sara Teasdale

It will not hurt me when I am old.
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old.

***

There’s something about October, isn’t there?  The dark mornings, the vanishing daylight, the chill in the air that is inching from refreshing to bitter. I absolutely adore September, but in October… things get rocky.  Especially on an academic calendar, which so happens to be the calendar all of us abide by.  And which is why things have gotten fairly quiet around here.

Now is usually the time, too, when I am forced to take stock of the goals I set for myself for the semester and to readjust them.  So many things hoped for and let go of.  My happy heart has gratefully not yet turned cold, but it is the opening of the second stanza that falls like dead weight on my chest. “The heart asks more than life can give, / When that is learned, then all is learned[.]”  That resonates so much with me — not only the constancy of longing (if only I had more time, more talent, more confidence, more…), but also the simple fact that that lesson is one that I must learn and relearn.  Over and again.  And it never seems to hurt any less — at least for as long, I suppose, as I retain my happy heart.