Pages

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Paris in Spring



Paris in Spring

By Sara Teasdale

 

The city’s all a-shining

Beneath a fickle sun,

A gay young wind’s a-blowing,

The little shower is done.

But the rain-drops still are clinging

And falling one by one —

Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

And spring-time has begun.

 

I know the Bois is twinkling

In a sort of hazy sheen,

And down the Champs the gray old arch

Stands cold and still between.

But the walk is flecked with sunlight

Where the great acacias lean,

Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

And the leaves are growing green.

 

The sun’s gone in, the sparkle’s dead,

There falls a dash of rain,

But who would care when such an air

Comes blowing up the Seine?

And still Ninette sits sewing

Beside her window-pane,

When it’s Paris, it’s Paris,

And spring-time’s come again.

 

About Sara Teasdale

On August 8, 1884, Sara Trevor Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, into an old, established, and devout family. She was home-schooled until she was nine and traveled frequently to Chicago, where she became part of the circle surrounding Poetrymagazine and Harriet Monroe. Teasdale published Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems, her first volume of verse, in 1907. Her second collection, Helen of Troy, and Other Poems, followed in 1911, and her third, Rivers to the Sea, in 1915.

 

In 1914 Teasdale married Ernst Filsinger; she had previously rejected a number of other suitors, including Vachel Lindsay.* She moved with her new husband to New York City in 1916. In 1918, she won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize (which became the Pulitzer Prize for poetry) and the Poetry Society of America Prize for Love Songs, which had appeared in 1917. She published three more volumes of poetry during her lifetime: Flame and Shadow (1920), Dark of the Moon (1926), and Stars To-night (1930). Teasdale's work had always been characterized by its simplicity and clarity, her use of classical forms, and her passionate and romantic subject matter. These later books trace her growing finesse and poetic subtlety. She divorced in 1929 and lived the rest of her life as a semi-invalid. Weakened after a difficult bout with pneumonia, Teasdale died by suicide on January 29, 1933. Her final collection, Strange Victory appeared posthumously that same year.

 

* Vachel Lindsay was famous in the early 20th century as a traveling bard whose dramatic delivery in public readings helped keep appreciation for poetry as a spoken art alive in the American Midwest; he called these performances the “Higher Vaudeville.”

1 comment:

  1. So many souvenirs of being in Paris on May 1989.
    I was singing in a choir and we did sing a mass at Notre Dame de Paris too.
    Went visiting and as every tourists do, we went way up this beautiful Eiffel Tour.

    The weather was so nice too.

    I want to go back there and more now that I have a good friend of mine who owns a condo in Paris.

    As soon as we can go on trips and safely too I'll be going back to visit France.
    Another good friend of mine lives in Vichy and he too wants me to go and visit him in the Auvergne region.
    This friend came to visit me in Montreal la December.

    Maybe I'll be able to see this nice man on the balcony of my friend's condo...

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting. I always want to know what you have to say. However, I have a few rules:
1. Always be kind and considerate to others.
2. Do not degrade other people's way of thinking.
3. I have the right to refuse or remove any comment I deem inappropriate.
4. If you comment on a post that was published over 14 days ago, it will not post immediately. Those comments are set for moderation. If it doesn't break the above rules, it will post.