Lines Thought by Vachel Lindsay Upon Visiting Sarah Teasdale at Bellefontaine
(The poets, Vachel Lindsay and Sarah Teasdale, both committed suicide in their mid-40s though it cannot be proven if Lindsay’s obsession with Teasdale after a lacklaster courtship was a cause.)
I took the train down from Springfield for this.
I never expected it to feel real.
Reflecting on death’s shabby appeal,
She was a light. A star. A good night kiss.
I never could have thought her life amiss.
When I would woo her, her joy would conceal
The fact love was extracorporeal
Effects of her undying sense of bliss.
I stand in front of my beloved’s grave.
In spite, my current wife shall never know.
I will hear the beating of her loving
Heart beneath the ground and in a cold cave
Along the Mississippi bank. Quiet though
Her soul found solace in silent nothing.