To Cleis

To Cleis by Sara Teasdale

From Helen of Troy and Other Poems Part III

"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,

Cleis, the beloved."

                          Sapphic fragment.

When the dusk was wet with dew,
      Cleis, did the muses nine
      Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?

Did they weep or did they smile
      When she crooned to still your cries,
      She, a muse in human guise,
Who forsook her lyre awhile?

Did you feel her wild heart beat?
      Did the warmth of all the sun
      Thro' your little body run
When she kissed your hands and feet?

Did your fingers, babywise,
      Touch her face and touch her hair,
      Did you think your mother fair,
Could you bear her burning eyes?

Are the songs that soothed your fears
      Vanished like a vanished flame,
      Save the line where shines your name
Starlike down the graying years?

Cleis speaks no word to me,
      For the land where she has gone
      Lieth mute at dusk and dawn
Like a windless tideless sea.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923. The author died in 1933, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.