Refuge by Sara Teasdale - Poem for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

The Englewood Review of Books curates a weekly series of classic and contemporary poems that resonate with the themes of the lectionary readings. Here is one of the poems for this coming Sunday (More poems for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C can be found here)

Refuge

Sara Teasdale

to accompany the lectionary reading: Psalm 16

From my spirit’s gray defeat,

From my pulse’s flagging beat,

From my hopes that turned to sand

Sifting through my close-clenched hand,

From my own fault’s slavery,

If I can sing, I still am free.

For with my singing I can make

A refuge for my spirit’s sake,

A house of shining words, to be

My fragile immortality.

*** This poem is in the public domain,

and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.

Sara Teasdale  (1884-1933) was an American poet, born in St. Louis, MO. From 1904 to 1907, Teasdale was a member of The Potters, a group of female artists in their late teens and early twenties who published The Potter's Wheel, a monthly artistic and literary magazine in St. Louis. She published four collections of poetry and won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry collection Love Songs (via Wikipedia).