RPO -- Sara Teasdale : Barter

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Barter

1Life has loveliness to sell,

2 All beautiful and splendid things,

3Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

4 Soaring fire that sways and sings,

5And children's faces looking up

6Holding wonder like a cup.

7Life has loveliness to sell,

8 Music like a curve of gold,

9Scent of pine trees in the rain,

10 Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

11And for your spirit's still delight,

12Holy thoughts that star the night.

13Spend all you have for loveliness,

14 Buy it and never count the cost;

15For one white singing hour of peace

16 Count many a year of strife well lost,

17And for a breath of ecstasy

18Give all you have been, or could be.

Notes

1] sell: to part with in return for something, to barter a valuable for a thing of little worth. See OED 7b, which cites Genesis 25:29-34: starving Esau "sells" his birthright or inheritance to Jacob for food, an act that Esau justifies by saying, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?".

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Love Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1917): 3-4. PS 3539 .E15 L8 1917 Robarts Library
First publication date: 1917
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2004
Recent editing: 1:2004/1/30

Form: sestets
Rhyme: abcbdd

Other poems by Sara Teasdale