Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for [the]1 Spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

[Give]2 all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Sara Teasdale, Love Songs, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1917, page 3.

¹ Hall: "your"
² Bachlund, Hall: "Spend"

Authorship:

• by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933), "Barter", appears in Love Songs, first published 1917 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Barter", 2010 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Henry Leland Clarke (1907 - 1992), "Life has loveliness to sell" [ unison chorus and piano ], antiphonal [sung text not yet checked]
• by Juliana Hall (b. 1958), "Barter", 2015, first performed 2016 [ vocal duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano with piano ], from Music like a curve of gold, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Simon Sargon (b. 1938), "Barter", 1988 [ voice and piano ], from Let it be you, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-02-13
Line count: 18
Word count: 111