Sara Teasdale was born in St.
Louis, Missouri to a wealthy family. As a young woman she traveled to Chicago
and grew acquainted with Harriet Monroe and the literary circle around Poetry.
Teasdale wrote seven books of poetry in her lifetime and received public
admiration for her well-crafted lyrical poetry which centered on a woman’s
changing perspectives on beauty, love, and death. Many of Teasdale’s poems
chart developments in her own life, from her experiences as a sheltered young
woman in St. Louis, to those as a successful yet increasingly uneasy writer in
New York City, to a depressed and disillusioned person who would commit suicide
in 1933.
From 1911 to 1914 Teasdale was
courted by several men, including the poet Vachel Lindsay, who was truly in
love with her but did not feel that he could provide enough money or stability
to keep her satisfied. She chose to
marry Ernst Filsinger, a longtime admirer of her poetry, on December 19, 1914.
She divorced him in 1929 and moved two
blocks from her old home on Central Park West. She rekindled her friendship
with Vachel Lindsay, who was now married with children. In 1933, she died by
suicide, overdosing on sleeping pills. Lindsay had died by suicide two years
earlier. Crushed by financial worry and in failing health from his six-month
road trip, Lindsay sank into depression. On December 5, 1931, he committed
suicide by drinking a bottle of lye. His last words were: "They tried to
get me; I got them first!
Those
who love the most,
Do
not talk of their love,
Francesca,
Guinevere,
Deirdre,
Iseult, Heloise,
In
the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are
silent, or speak if at all
Of
fragile, inconsequent things.
And
a woman I used to know
Who
loved one man from her youth,
Against
the strength of the fates
Fighting
in somber pride,
Never
spoke of this thing,
But
hearing his name by chance,
A
light would pass over her face.