The Tramp Poet and the Businessman

A Poetry Tale about Sara Teasdale, told by Hello Doggo.

By nineteen fourteen, the shy, delicate poet Sara Teasdale of Saint Louis had two men in pursuit. They could hardly have been less alike.

One was Vachel Lindsay. A poet, and a loud one: he chanted his verse like a revival preacher. Not long before, he’d set off on foot from Springfield, Illinois, heading for New Mexico, swapping his poems for meals and a bed. He even printed a pamphlet for the purpose. Its title: Rhymes to be Traded for Bread.

The other was Ernst Filsinger. A Saint Louis businessman. Steady. Solvent. And a long-time admirer of her poems.

Lindsay wooed her by letter, constantly and extravagantly. In time he would dedicate a whole book to her, The Chinese Nightingale. But even Lindsay doubted he could give her the money and stability she would need.

Rhymes for bread are romantic. They don’t heat a house.

In December nineteen fourteen, she married Filsinger.

That much is on record. The legend — that she loved the wild poet and settled for the safe man — is reading between the lines. She certainly cared for Lindsay. Whether she was in love with him, nobody can prove.

A few years later, in a poem called Barter, she gave the rest of us her advice: spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost.

If the legend’s right, she was speaking from experience. She’d counted it.