Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Sara Teasdale

Unless I learn to ask no help
 From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
 Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
 Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
 Whatever gifts will make me wise—
Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given birth?

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Love Songs | 1917

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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