Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Edna St. Vincent de Millay

There are some days when nothing will do but some ESVdM. Like Dorothy Parker, she is brilliant at flattening the compulsive male ego. This has been one of my favourite poems since I first encountered it as a freshman. Oh that someday I might elevate my poor musings to this level:

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.

-Edna St. Vincent de Millay, 1923

No comments:

Post a Comment