Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,— They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. edna st vincent millay and eugen jan boussevain, a wealthy widower who was 10 years her elder, bought a 600 acre blueberry farm in austerlitz new york in 1925 and built a sears-roebuck kit structure on it. the property is now an arts colony. two years before marrying, millay became the third woman ever awarded the pulitzer prize for poetry for "the ballad of the harp-weaver." a redheaded greenwich village bohemian who claimed to have been "very, very poor and very, very merry" in her downtown milieu, the poet counted the critics edmund wilson and floyd dell among her suitors, as well as silent screen actress edith wynne matthison. millay and boussevain were advocates and vigorous practitioners of a lifestyle known as the "open relationship" throughout their union. having loved many women, she especially fell for george dillon, a poet 14 years her junior, and wrote "fatal interview," a collection of sonnets, under his spell. a hard partying gal, millay had a heart attack and tumbled down the stairs of her home and died alone at the age of 58, a year after doussevain succumbed to lung cancer. in her times obit, dell recalled millay as "a frivolous young woman, with a brand-new pair of dancing slippers and a mouth like a valentine."
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 06:16:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015