From the Archives

Songs in a Hospital: Pain

Sara Teasdale

Waves are the sea’s white daughters,

And raindrops the children of rain,

But why for my shimmering body

Have I a mother like Pain?

Night is the mother of stars,

And wind the mother of foam—

The world is burdened with beauty,

But my mother keeps me home.

The Yale Review is committed to publishing pieces from its archive as they originally appeared, without alterations to spelling, content, or style. Occasionally, errors creep in due to the digitization process; we work to correct these errors as we find them. You can email [email protected] with any you find.

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) was an American poet. She was the first person to win the Poetry Society of America Prize, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her 1917 poetry collection Love Songs.

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