The Lamp (2008)

Sara Teasdale’s poignant poem “The Lamp” (from her 1917 collection Love Songs) immediately caught my imagination from the moment I first encountered the poem. The work is brief and has the simple sort of eloquence found in hymn texts, yet speaks of earthly love rather than divine. Though this fact is not clearly stated in the first stanza, the second explains how the human love the author has experienced is profound enough to make life worthwhile even if there is no higher power.