Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), an American lyric poet, was the author of nine volumes of poetry published between 1907 and the year of her death. Though her poems frequently appear in anthologies for children, their formal simplicity and their attention to the beauties of the natural world evince complex undertones of loneliness and lament. “Spring in War-Time,” with its off-rhymes and varied meters, each stanza moving from tetrameter to dimeter, juxtaposes the season’s renewal with the distant, yet present, reality of the First World War.

Spring in War-Time
by Sara Teasdale

I feel the spring far off, far off,
The faint, far scent of bud and leaf—
Oh, how can spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?

The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright—
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?

The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves—
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?

Under the boughs where lovers walked
The apple-blooms will shed their breath—
But what of all the lovers now
Parted by Death,
Grey Death?

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of a North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.