At the gate of Edna's Steepletop

  Förra veckan blev det inga kvinnliga poeter i sonettinlägget. Det tar jag igen genom att ge Edna St. Vincent Millay hela kvällens utrymme. Hon skrev åtskilliga sonetter, en hel del av dem var högtravande och andra handlade om kärlek och smärta - lite som de sociala medierna ser ut idag.

Steepletop, Austerlitz, New York

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  Edna St. Vincent Millay steg omedelbart fram som ett poesins söndagsbarn med sina rytmiskt eleganta och livfulla diktsamlingar Renascence (1917) och A Few Figs From Thistles (1920). Second April (1921) och The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923; första utgåvan 1922: The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver) gav med sina moderna kärleksideal och fria hållning M. status av generationspoet. Källa: NE

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(From Collected sonnets / Edna St. Vincent Millay. Harper Perennial, 1988.)

Night is my sister, and how deep in love,
How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,
There to be fretted by the drag and shove
At the tide's edge, I lie—these things and more:
Whose arm alone between me and the sand,
Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,
Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,
She could advise you, should you care to hear.
Small chance, however, in a storm so black,
A man will leave his friendly fire and snug
For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back
To drip and scatter shells upon the rug.
No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,
Watches beside me in this windy place.

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  År 1925 köpte Millay och hennes make, den holländske importören Eugen Boissevain, 1800-talsgården vid Steepletop i Austerlitz, New York. De tillbringade de kommande 25 åren med att skapa både en lugn plats där Millay kunde skriva och en social träffpunkt som deras vänner - författare, musiker och andra, kunde njuta av.
Millay dog på Steepletop 1950. Hon är gravsatt på gårdens mark, tillsammans med sin make, sin mamma Cora, sin syster Norma och sin svåger Charles Ellis. Källa: The Millay Society

(From Collected sonnets / Edna St Vincent Millay. Harper Perennial, 1988.)

Clearly my ruined garden as it stood 
Before the frost came on it I recall — 
Stiff marigolds, and what a trunk of wood 
The zinnia had, that was the first to fall; 
These pale and oozy stalks, these hanging leaves 
Nerveless and darkened, dripping in the sun, 
Cannot gainsay me, though the spirit grieves 
And wrings its hands at what the frost has done. 
If in a widening silence you should guess 
I read the moment with recording eyes, 
Taking your love and all your loveliness 
Into a listening body hushed of sighs … 
Though summer's rife and the warm rose in season, 
Rebuke me not: I have a winter reason.

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(From Collected sonnets / Edna St Vincent Millay. Harper Perennial, 1988.)

Those hours when happy hours were my estate, —
Entailed, as proper, for the next in line,
Yet mine the harvest, and the title mine —
Those acres, fertile, and the furrows straight,
From which the lark would rise — all of my late
Enchantments, still, in brilliant colours, shine,
But striped with black, the tulip, lawn and vine,
Like gardens looked at through an iron gate.
Yet not as one who never sojourned there
I view the lovely segment of a past
I lived with all my senses, well aware
That this was perfect, and it would not last:
I smell the flower, though vacuum-still the air;
I feel its texture, though the gate is fast.