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Rivers to the Sea
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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About the author
Sara Teasdale
197 books280 followersSara Teasdale was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.
Teasdale's first poem was published in Reedy's Mirror, a local newspaper, in 1907. Her first collection of poems, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems, was published that same year.
Teasdale's second collection of poems, Helen of Troy and Other Poems, was published in 1911. It was well received by critics, who praised its lyrical mastery and romantic subject matter.
In the years 1911 to 1914, Teasdale was courted by several men, including poet Vachel Lindsay, who was absolutely in love with her but did not feel that he could provide enough money or stability to keep her satisfied. She chose instead to marry Ernst Filsinger, who had been an admirer of her poetry for a number of years, on December 19, 1914.
Teasdale's third poetry collection, Rivers to the Sea, was published in 1915 and was a best seller, being reprinted several times. A year later, in 1916 she moved to New York City with Filsinger, where they resided in an Upper West Side apartment on Central Park West.
In 1918, her poetry collection Love Songs (released 1917) won three awards: the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America.
Filsinger was away a lot on business which caused a lot of loneliness for Teasdale. In 1929, she moved interstate for three months, thereby satisfying the criteria to gain a divorce. She did not wish to inform Filsinger, and only did so at the insistence of her lawyers as the divorce was going through - Filsinger was shocked and surprised.
Post-divorce, Teasdale remained in New York City, living only two blocks away from her old home on Central Park West. She rekindled her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was by this time married with children.
In 1933, she committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Her friend Vachel Lindsay had committed suicide two years earlier. She is interred in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
-taken from: Wikipedia
Teasdale's first poem was published in Reedy's Mirror, a local newspaper, in 1907. Her first collection of poems, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems, was published that same year.
Teasdale's second collection of poems, Helen of Troy and Other Poems, was published in 1911. It was well received by critics, who praised its lyrical mastery and romantic subject matter.
In the years 1911 to 1914, Teasdale was courted by several men, including poet Vachel Lindsay, who was absolutely in love with her but did not feel that he could provide enough money or stability to keep her satisfied. She chose instead to marry Ernst Filsinger, who had been an admirer of her poetry for a number of years, on December 19, 1914.
Teasdale's third poetry collection, Rivers to the Sea, was published in 1915 and was a best seller, being reprinted several times. A year later, in 1916 she moved to New York City with Filsinger, where they resided in an Upper West Side apartment on Central Park West.
In 1918, her poetry collection Love Songs (released 1917) won three awards: the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America.
Filsinger was away a lot on business which caused a lot of loneliness for Teasdale. In 1929, she moved interstate for three months, thereby satisfying the criteria to gain a divorce. She did not wish to inform Filsinger, and only did so at the insistence of her lawyers as the divorce was going through - Filsinger was shocked and surprised.
Post-divorce, Teasdale remained in New York City, living only two blocks away from her old home on Central Park West. She rekindled her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was by this time married with children.
In 1933, she committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Her friend Vachel Lindsay had committed suicide two years earlier. She is interred in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
-taken from: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
October 23, 2022
“How many times we must have met
Here on the street as strangers do,
Children of chance we were, who passed
The door of heaven and never knew.”
"Oh, gray bells cease your tolling,
Time takes too much from me,
And yet to rock and river
He gives eternity."
Rivers to the Sea was a volume of poetry by Sara Teasdale that was published in 1915 when she was only twenty-one years old. The volume became a bestseller and was reprinted several times. In three more years (1918), she would receive the Pulitzer prize for a subsequent volume entitled Love Songs which had been published the previous year. She was considered one of the three great St. Louis poets who were born during the 1880's, the other two being T. S. Eliot and Marianne Moore.
For me, Rivers to the Sea is beauty in its simplicity. It isn't poetry with complex depth requiring the reader to review a poetry analysis to gain an understanding of its meaning. The impact of her poetry touches the heart of the reader because it can be understood and, consequently, felt. Many of her poems, at this time of her life, relate to her feelings of love, and many of those were probably for the love of one man, the poet Vachel Lindsay. Other emotions also permeate her poetry including joy, beauty, despair, contemplation, and depression. As Teasdale leads the reader through these paths of sentiment, recognition arises, and one says, "Yes, I have felt that way."
Teasdale's poetry is timeless. In fact, one of her poems from a subsequent volume was used by the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury to create an unforgettable story called, There will Come Soft Rains. That poem was not an anomaly, however. There are many of her poems, including those in this volume, that could march down eons of time and still be as fresh as they were when she had first written them in the early part of the twentieth century. They speak out and they whisper to anyone that will listen. They tell us how we feel during our times of gaiety or our times of grief, our times of sociability and our times of solitude, our times of hope and our times of discouragement. But at this time of the poet's life, most of her poetry appears fresh, exuberant, and sanguine for she still has not experienced her tragic years.
Although not having done so yet, I look forward to reading Sara Teasdale's final volume of poetry which she titled Strange Victory. That volume was published posthumously following the taking of her own life in 1933 following a bout of ill health and pneumonia. Vachel Lindsay had died two years prior, also as a result of suicide. Her conception of life and the world at that time must have changed significantly from the, what she might consider, frivolous age of twenty-one, when life was so much more optimistic. Regardless, her poetry, even at a young age is a thing of artistry and ageless contemplation and I highly recommend it.
Here on the street as strangers do,
Children of chance we were, who passed
The door of heaven and never knew.”
"Oh, gray bells cease your tolling,
Time takes too much from me,
And yet to rock and river
He gives eternity."
Rivers to the Sea was a volume of poetry by Sara Teasdale that was published in 1915 when she was only twenty-one years old. The volume became a bestseller and was reprinted several times. In three more years (1918), she would receive the Pulitzer prize for a subsequent volume entitled Love Songs which had been published the previous year. She was considered one of the three great St. Louis poets who were born during the 1880's, the other two being T. S. Eliot and Marianne Moore.
For me, Rivers to the Sea is beauty in its simplicity. It isn't poetry with complex depth requiring the reader to review a poetry analysis to gain an understanding of its meaning. The impact of her poetry touches the heart of the reader because it can be understood and, consequently, felt. Many of her poems, at this time of her life, relate to her feelings of love, and many of those were probably for the love of one man, the poet Vachel Lindsay. Other emotions also permeate her poetry including joy, beauty, despair, contemplation, and depression. As Teasdale leads the reader through these paths of sentiment, recognition arises, and one says, "Yes, I have felt that way."
Teasdale's poetry is timeless. In fact, one of her poems from a subsequent volume was used by the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury to create an unforgettable story called, There will Come Soft Rains. That poem was not an anomaly, however. There are many of her poems, including those in this volume, that could march down eons of time and still be as fresh as they were when she had first written them in the early part of the twentieth century. They speak out and they whisper to anyone that will listen. They tell us how we feel during our times of gaiety or our times of grief, our times of sociability and our times of solitude, our times of hope and our times of discouragement. But at this time of the poet's life, most of her poetry appears fresh, exuberant, and sanguine for she still has not experienced her tragic years.
Although not having done so yet, I look forward to reading Sara Teasdale's final volume of poetry which she titled Strange Victory. That volume was published posthumously following the taking of her own life in 1933 following a bout of ill health and pneumonia. Vachel Lindsay had died two years prior, also as a result of suicide. Her conception of life and the world at that time must have changed significantly from the, what she might consider, frivolous age of twenty-one, when life was so much more optimistic. Regardless, her poetry, even at a young age is a thing of artistry and ageless contemplation and I highly recommend it.
January 11, 2020
My fav poet! I’m so happy to have found an old print edition of RIVERS TO THE SEA. Though my book says it was printed in 1915. And given as a gift to the purchaser’s wife in 1918.
January 14, 2012
What her poems lack in complexity, they make up for in genuine emotion. She may tiptoe up and down the line of sentimentality, but as far as I'm concerned, she does no more than let one toe across the line. Her best work is along the theme of lost love.
August 19, 2018
Sara Teasdale's poems are like lace doilies--quaint and old-fashioned, even sentimental, but sweet and impressive for their unsophisticated intricacy and emphatic prettiness.
INDIAN SUMMER
Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon the winter will be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
THE STAR
A white star born in the evening glow
Looked to the round green world below,
And saw a pool in a wooded place
That held like a jewel her mirrored face.
She said to the pool: "Oh, wondrous deep,
I love you, I give you my light to keep.
Oh, more profound than the moving sea
That never has shown myself to me!
Oh, fathomless as the sky is far,
Hold forever your tremulous star!"
But out of the woods as night grew cool
A brown pig came to the little pool;
It grunted and splashed and waded in
And the deepest place but reached its chin.
The water gurgled with tender glee
And the mud churned up in it turbidly.
The star grew pale and hid her face
In a bit of floating cloud like lace.
STRESA
The moon grows out of the hills
A yellow flower,
The lake is a dreamy bride
Who waits her hour.
Beauty has filled my heart,
It can hold no more,
It is full, as the lake is full,
From shore to shore.
INDIAN SUMMER
Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon the winter will be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
THE STAR
A white star born in the evening glow
Looked to the round green world below,
And saw a pool in a wooded place
That held like a jewel her mirrored face.
She said to the pool: "Oh, wondrous deep,
I love you, I give you my light to keep.
Oh, more profound than the moving sea
That never has shown myself to me!
Oh, fathomless as the sky is far,
Hold forever your tremulous star!"
But out of the woods as night grew cool
A brown pig came to the little pool;
It grunted and splashed and waded in
And the deepest place but reached its chin.
The water gurgled with tender glee
And the mud churned up in it turbidly.
The star grew pale and hid her face
In a bit of floating cloud like lace.
STRESA
The moon grows out of the hills
A yellow flower,
The lake is a dreamy bride
Who waits her hour.
Beauty has filled my heart,
It can hold no more,
It is full, as the lake is full,
From shore to shore.
October 13, 2022
Morning
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky
There in the windy floor of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.
Except from From the Woolworth Tower
That change far off to bluish steel
Where the fragile lights on the Jersey shore
Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.
The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread into the night,
Their whistles weird shadows of sound.
The sea will remain
Black and unchanging,
The stars will look down
Brilliant and unconcerned.
April
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings to me.
The Sea Wind
I am a pool in a peaceful place,
I greet the great sky face to face,
I know the stars and the stately moon
And the wind that runs with rippling shoon--
But why does it always bring to me
That far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?
The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green,
But the wind comes whispering in between,
In the dead of night when the sky is deep
The wind comes waking me out of sleep--
Why does it always bring to me
The far-off, terrible call of the sea.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.
I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"
But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,
And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am as bitter as the sea.
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky
There in the windy floor of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.
Except from From the Woolworth Tower
That change far off to bluish steel
Where the fragile lights on the Jersey shore
Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.
The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread into the night,
Their whistles weird shadows of sound.
The sea will remain
Black and unchanging,
The stars will look down
Brilliant and unconcerned.
April
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings to me.
The Sea Wind
I am a pool in a peaceful place,
I greet the great sky face to face,
I know the stars and the stately moon
And the wind that runs with rippling shoon--
But why does it always bring to me
That far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?
The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green,
But the wind comes whispering in between,
In the dead of night when the sky is deep
The wind comes waking me out of sleep--
Why does it always bring to me
The far-off, terrible call of the sea.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.
I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"
But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,
And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am as bitter as the sea.
November 27, 2019
Very good.
Maybe 4,5 stars. Either way some of the poems about love, death, freedom and solitude were really good.
Definitely worth reading.
There are a couple of editing errors in the Kindle version.
Maybe 4,5 stars. Either way some of the poems about love, death, freedom and solitude were really good.
Definitely worth reading.
There are a couple of editing errors in the Kindle version.
May 3, 2023
I became her fan after reading her book 'Love Songs' and this book too had some of the poems she has written in the love songs. I loved all of them. If you are someone who enjoys reading poetry, then Sara Teasdale should be on your list as her words will fill your heart with hope and love.
November 13, 2019
2,5 ⭐s
Read
December 21, 2019es un bálsamo para mi mente
December 28, 2019
Sara Teasdale is officially one of my favorite poets.
April 9, 2021
Lost a star for that one line about burning gays 🤨suppose that is my fault for reading poetry written in 1915
August 26, 2021
Some great poems here that I marked as favorites. Can you guess which ones?
October 29, 2021
"The stars are heavy in heaven, / Too great for the sky to hold --"
March 15, 2022
Boring, a few nice ones here and there but mostly just random gibberish.
February 8, 2024
John Hall Wheelock...why you no love Sara?
May 17, 2024
when you’re in a yearning, being a lover, and longing competition but your opponent is Teasdale
July 17, 2024
I love this woman!!!!!!!
December 24, 2024
i love sara teasdale
February 5, 2017
Sarah Teasdale ❤️ my heart is hers, her poems mine.
September 15, 2022
Any collection of poetry where I really enjoy more than one or two poems is a clear winner for me, so despite a number of boring and/or odd poems mixed in, I'm quite a fan of this one overall. I even appreciated some of the breakup poems a tiny bit when I started to think of them like Taylor Swift songs...
A few of these do have adult themes or veiled adult references, and there is a reference or two to suicidal thoughts.
A few of these do have adult themes or veiled adult references, and there is a reference or two to suicidal thoughts.
July 12, 2019
My heart being dead and all about half of these poems did nothing for me. But occasionally there are notes of longing and grieving even a little despair that sang for me.
October 4, 2022
Review in 2014: This is an excellent collection of Sara Teasdale's poetry that kept my interest from beginning to end. She wrote with such ease and with a pretty lyrical style. I enjoyed this collection.
This deserves another reading.
Reviewed in 2022: I re-read this collection of Sara Teasdale’s poems, and I like them as much as I did when I first read them. These are deep and soulful.
Two of my favorites follow:
🟣Kindle version.
This deserves another reading.
Reviewed in 2022: I re-read this collection of Sara Teasdale’s poems, and I like them as much as I did when I first read them. These are deep and soulful.
Two of my favorites follow:
SONG
Love me with your whole heart
Or give no love to me,
Half-love is a poor thing,
Neither bond nor free.
You must love me gladly
Soul and body too,
Or else find a new love,
And good-by to you.
PEACE
Peace flows into me
AS the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.
I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.
I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,—
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.
🟣Kindle version.
November 25, 2009
I feel like such a sap when I read Teasdale. While her poetry is simple in structure and often very short (some are only one stanza), and they tend to rhyme, they are full of longing and sentimentality. This set comes with the poem that is rumored to be the one she wrote after her past love killed himself ("I Shall Not Care"). My favorites were Spring, From the Woolworth Tower, I Am Not Yours, and A Cry; I didn't care much for the second of the five sections. Her poems seem familiar, but I don't think I've read her before. I think that is more a reflection of the simplicity and feeling of loss or sadness.
I read this in a first edition, with brittle pages and that lovely old book smell. I'm sure that added to my enjoyment, but I also think you will get more from them if you read a little about her first.
I read this in a first edition, with brittle pages and that lovely old book smell. I'm sure that added to my enjoyment, but I also think you will get more from them if you read a little about her first.
May 25, 2008
When one reads this poetry, one gets struck by the way in which society moulds a poet. Teasdale was the recipient of the Columbia University Poetry Society prize for her Love Songs in 1918 – why? This poetry has some beautiful moments, but I found some of it extremely 'stale' and almost hated the way everything was forced to rhyme.
The prize I mention above, was the forerunner of what we know as the Pulitzer today: Would you award Teasdale that prize today?
The prize I mention above, was the forerunner of what we know as the Pulitzer today: Would you award Teasdale that prize today?
May 7, 2014
sara is very unique poet, she had two weapons :love and death. her poem is description of regret and always wishing something else rather than what we have. there is lots of lovely poems but its not typical love, there is always something wrong, sad in her description. she is my favirote, there is strength and pain in her poems which is something i like.
April 25, 2011
I think I'm in love with Sara. My favorite poems were Immortal, Leaves, The Cloud and "I am not yours". Some of the more memorable lines include "Lost as a candle lit at noon, / Lost as a snow-flake in the sea." and "A leaf borne onward by the blast, / A wave that never finds the shore."
June 21, 2011
My second of the four I read in two days. This continued to leave my heart in my throat the entire time. Oh, love. Love, you are trapped in these pages, like a bird, ever caught, at and ever flying free.
July 30, 2008
As always, I love Sara Teasdale's poetry. She has some lovely imagery and I do love the way her poems are written.
December 10, 2014
This is some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews