the archivist October 1, 2019
Sara Teasdale | PolyArchive Publications

Songs out of Sorrow
IV. Wisdom
Sara Teasdale

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange—my youth.

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This poem initially appeared in Teasdale’s 1917 Collection, Love Songs. She published a different poem entitled “Wisdom” in 1922.