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.
The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.
Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.
When we are headed the wrong way, the last thing we need is progress.
Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.
It is high time to compel man by the might of right to give woman her political, legal and social rights. She will find her own sphere in accordance with her capacities, powers and tastes; and yet she will be woman still.
if you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not.
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