Longing

by Sara Teasdale

I am not sorry for my soul

That it must go unsatisfied,

For it can live a thousand times,

Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,

But oh, my body that must go

Back to a little drift of dust

Without the joy it longed to know.

Sara Teasdale was born on Aug. 8, 1884, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents, John and Mary Elizabeth, tutored their shy and reserved daughter at home until she turned nine years old, at which point she entered a private school. While she attended the school, she began writing poems, one of which appeared Reedy's Mirror, a local literary publication, in 1907. That same year, her first collection of poems, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems, was published.