Poetic Divination

“Lights” by Sarah Teasdale

When we come home at night and close the door,

Standing together in the shadowy room,

Safe in our own love and the gentle gloom,

Glad of familiar wall and chair and floor,

Men have tried hard to put away the dark;

A million lighted windows brilliantly

Inlay with squares of gold the winter night,

But to us standing here there comes the stark

Sense of the lives behind each yellow light,

And not one wholly joyous, proud, or free.

(And this is my problem. Vers Libre never seemed to have a repeating pattern in their Random Poem — that is, the poems seemed truly random. On the other hand, PoemHunter isn’t quite so reliable and I sometimes suspect that the term “random” is being applied very loosely by them. Against all odds, Sarah Teasdale seems to show up quite often. As does Longfellow and a few others. And, from time to time, their random poem seems particularly suited towards a specific holiday or event. If this keeps up, I may have to go back to the pigeons…)