THE ANSWERING VOICE
ONE HUNDRED LOVE LYRICS BY WOMEN
THE ANSWERING VOICE
ONE HUNDRED LOVE LYRICS BY WOMEN
SELECTED BY
SARA TEASDALE
AUTHOR OF “RIVERS TO THE SEA,” “HELEN OF TROY, AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC.
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY SARA TEASDALE FILSINGER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published September 1917
THE HAPPY LABOR
OF SELECTING THESE POEMS
I DEDICATE TO
MY SISTER
“Ο gods, what love, what yearnings contributed to this.”
PREFATORY NOTE
I have tried to bring together in this book the most beautifullove-lyrics written in English by women since the middle of the lastcentury. During this period, for the first time in the history ofEnglish literature, the work of women has compared favorably with thatof men; and in no other field have they done such noteworthy work asin poetry. Before this period, for reasons well known to the studentof feminism, sincere love poems by women were very rare in England andAmerica. With the exception of Lady Barnard’s “Auld Robin Gray” and apoem by Susanna Blamire, I have found nothing that seemed worthy ofinclusion.
In most cases the finest utterance of women poets has been on love, sothat this book is, I venture to hope, a golden treasury of lyrics bywomen.
I have included no long poems, and no translations, and I have avoidedpoems in which the poet dramatized a man’s feelings rather than her own.
I want to acknowledge very gratefully my indebtedness[Pg x] for counsel andsuggestions to Harriet Monroe, Jessie B. Rittenhouse, Louis Untermeyer,Henry L. Mencken, William Stanley Braithwaite, Thomas S. Jones, Jr.,John Hall Wheelock, and Thomas B. Mosher. From my husband, Ernst B.Filsinger, I have received unfailing aid and encouragement.
Sara Teasdale
[Pg xi]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due the following publishers and authors for permission toinclude selections from the volumes enumerated below:—
To Mr. Richard G. Badger (Boston) for poems from “April Twilights,” byWilla Sibert Cather, and “The Dancers,” by Edith M. Thomas.
To Messrs. Benziger Brothers (New York) for a poem from “Irish Poems,”by Katharine Ty