Transcript Barter

Barter
By Sara Teasdale
Life has loveliness to sell,
all beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff.
Soaring fire that sways and sings.
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
Sara Teasdale
1884–1933
Although many later critics would not consider Teasdale
a major poet, she was popular in her lifetime with both
the public and critics. She won the first Columbia Poetry
Prize in 1918, a prize that would later be renamed the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Critics found much of Teasdale's poetry to be
unsophisticated but full of musical language and
evocative emotion. A New York Times Book Review
contributor, writing about the 1917 edition of Love
Songs, asserted that "Miss Teasdale is first, last, and
always a singer."
Saturday Review of Literature contributor Louis
Untermeyer, insisted that Strange Victory "must be
ranked among her significant works," that its "beauty is
in the restraint" of its "ever-present though never
elaborated theme." J. Overmyer voiced similar opinions
of Teasdale's poetry, as its "simply stated thoughts are
complex . . . and reverberate in the mind."
Teasdale's work in the 1926 book Dark of the Moon
demonstrates her sensitivity to language. New York
Times Book Review contributor Percy A. Hutchison
praised "the exquisite refinement of Sara Teasdale's lyric
poetry," which "shows how near Sara Teasdale can
come to art's ultimate goals."
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sara-teasdale
“Oh who can tell
the range of joy or
set the bounds of
beauty?”