Sara Teasdale

Overview

Sara Teasdale born St. Louis, MO August 8, 1884 (d. 1933). American lyric poet; pacifist; critic of arms manufacturers.

Quotations

They are making ammunition. . .
They are shaping brass and bullets
That will kill their fellow men. . .
And the murdereres go scatheless
Though they do the work of hell.

“Spring in the Naugatuck Valley”, 1915

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound. . .
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

(1920; photo: poetryfoundation.org)