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.