In Sara Teasdale's "Change," there exists an ambiguity as to whether the speaker has literally aged, or her heart and spirit have lost the innocence and "joie de vivre" that they had heretofore. For, there seems to be a suggestion that the speaker has suffered some tragedy in life, some disappointment, or some realization of the truth of life:
Turn from me now, but alway hear
The muted laughter in the dew
Of that one year of youth we had,
The only youth we ever knew--
Turn from me now, or you will see
What other years have done to me.
The line "Of that one year of youth we had" connotes that the speaker and her lover have had only a brief time of romantic bliss in which she had the
eyes that love had made as bright
As the trembling stars of the summer night
After this one year, realities of economic struggle, loss, or some other hardship have mitigated the estactic love of the speaker. Because she still loves the person she addresses, she asks him to turn from her now, desiring that he remember only the one year of love that was untarnished. This theme of longing is characteristic of Sara Teasdale.
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