Union Square

By Sara Teasdale 1884–1933 Sara Teasdale

With the man I love who loves me not,

I walked in the street-lamps' flare;

We watched the world go home that night

In a flood through Union Square.

I leaned to catch the words he said

That were light as a snowflake falling;

Ah well that he never leaned to hear

The words my heart was calling.

And on we walked and on we walked

Past the fiery lights of the picture shows —

Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by

On the errand each man knows.

And on we walked and on we walked,

At the door at last we said good-bye;

I knew by his smile he had not heard

My heart's unuttered cry.

With the man I love who loves me not

I walked in the street-lamps' flare —

But oh, the girls who ask for love

In the lights of Union Square.

Biography

Sara Teasdale received public admiration for her well-crafted lyrical poetry which centered on a woman's changing perspectives on beauty, love, and death. Many of Teasdale's poems chart developments in her own life, from her experiences as a sheltered young woman in St. Louis, to those as a successful yet increasingly uneasy writer in New York City, to a depressed and disillusioned person who would commit suicide in 1933. . . .

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