Sara Trevor Teasdale:
(Later Filsinger; August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933).
American lyric poet.
She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and used the name Filsinger after her 1914 marriage. In 1918, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry collection Love Songs.
The world is tired, the year is old. The faded leaves are glad to die.
Beneath the apple blossoms, I go a wintry way, for love that smiled in April is false to me in May.
– This is ‘not a traditional saying or proverb’, but a ‘poetic line / short poem’.
Literally:
– The speaker walks ‘under apple blossoms’ — an image of ‘spring, beauty, new beginnings’.
– Yet she walks a “wintery path” — inwardly, therefore, she feels no slowness, but ‘cold, loss, loneliness’.
Figure:
– “April” yesterday stands for:
– beginning of love
– hope
– promise
– early happiness
– “May” stands for:
– the time shortly thereafter
– disillusionment
– the realization that that love ‘did not last’
Important nuance:
– The English “false” came yesterday without only “false” in the sense of “untrue”, but especially:
– unfaithful
– unreliable
– deceitful
– does not allow any damage
👉 From kern is due:
> ‘Nature stands and blooms, but beloved love has vanished again, having proven to be ruinous.’
✍️ Author:
– Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)
– American poet
– Known for her ‘short, musical, melancholic love lyrics’
Origin:
– These regulations originate from a ‘short poem/verse by Sara Teasdale’.
– The word goes ‘loosely quoted’, which means that it can also be said that it is a good thing.
– But it is therefore ‘poetry’, not folk wisdom or a proverb.
