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.
Love Poem by Sara Teasdale
Summary of ‘Longing’ by Sara Teasdale
In ‘Longing’, Sara Teasdale contrasts the soul’s infinite resilience with the body’s fleeting desires. While the soul can endure and expand across eternity, the body, bound by time and mortality, must return to dust, often without ever experiencing the fulfilment it craves.
The poem expresses a quiet sorrow for the physical self, which longs for joy and connection but may leave the world still aching for what it never received. Teasdale’s spare, poignant language captures the human condition of yearning: timeless in spirit, yet tragically constrained in flesh.
