Stitch-
Millay is one of my favorites-thank you for posting some of her work. In addition to all that incredible depth of feeling and passion, and her original turn of phrases and words, she also had a wonderful sense of irony and humor.
Carol, Millay was eclipsed in the 30s by the next wave: Eliot, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore, wasn't she one of your favorites?
Millay's work must have been really bold and innovative in the teens and twenties; she was a real feminist.
I love Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
I, being born a woman and distressed
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind.
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, - let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again. (1923) |
