For I shall learn from flower and leaf, That color every drop they hold, To change the lifeless wine of grief To living gold.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of transformation and finding beauty in sorrow.
Sara Teasdale's quote emphasizes the idea of learning from nature, specifically flowers and leaves, that can teach us to transform our grief into something beautiful and valuable, represented as 'living gold.' It suggests that through understanding and appreciating the world around us, we can change our perspective on loss and sorrow into something vibrant and meaningful.
In practice
In a speech about resilience, one might use this quote to illustrate how we can find beauty in our struggles.
As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose, _x000D_ _x000D_ Float in the garden when no wind blows, _x000D_ _x000D_ Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows; _x000D_ _x000D_ So the old tunes float in my mind, _x000D_ _x000D_ And go from me leaving no trace behind, _x000D_ _x000D_ Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.
From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.
I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone. Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea -- We two will pass through death and ages lengthen Before you hear that sound again with me.
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, Ceaseless, insistent. The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples, The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence Under a moon waning and worn, broken, Tired with summer.
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
Until I lose my soul and lie Blind to the beauty of the earth, Deaf though shouting wind goes by, Dumb in a storm of mirth; Until my heart is quenched at length And I have left the land of men, Oh, let me love with all my strength Careless if I am loved again.
With support from techies, designers, artists and thousands of activists across the country, Black Lives Matter is now an online-to-offline political movement, affirming the humanity and resilience of black communities.
Climate change, the spread of weapons of mass destruction. None of those can really effectively be dealt with by any one country acting alone and even the United States can't handle them alone. China needs to be part of the game on that.
Creative ideas are often attacked because people oppose change or do not understand new concepts.
Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.
Opportunities may come along for you to convert something - something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it.
There is no way you're going to have an event like 9/11 and expect things to remain the same. They killed 3,000 people in New York on that day, and if they could have they would've killed 300,000.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.