Wild Nights

Heart Wisdom from Five Women Poets

Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, Claire Whitmore

• Publisher: Ixia Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780486828930
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Religious Poetry
• Index: Literature

"A lovely collection of poetry." — Book ScroungerIn this soul-stirring collection of timeless verse, five legendary female poets address life's pains and sorrows as well as its joys and renewals. The poems appeal to the heart, providing companionship on the rugged path that all must tread. The roster features writers from ancient to modern times: Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
As instapoets continue to make poetry more accessible and popular, they build on the tradition of intimate, confessional works built by earlier generations. No one is more prominent at this heritage than the mysterious, evocative fragments of Sappho, which inspired an earlier generation of female poets to let loose their own talent. From idiosyncratic Dickinson to the passionate, Pulitzer Prize–winning Lowell, the romanticism of Teasdale, and the intense art of St. Vincent Millay — yet another Pulitzer winner — these writers were early trailblazers in speaking their emotional truth through their craft.
This handsome volume features original illustrations by Claire Whitmore, a Foreword by poet and novelist Lisa Locascio, and brief biographies of all five poets."The foreword is amazing. A lovely little anthology with some beautiful poetry by some very talented women." — From the Inside

EDNA

ST. VINCENT MILLAY

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

Midnight Oil

Cut if you will, with sleep’s dull knife,

Each day to half its length, my friend,—

The years that time takes off my life,

He’ll take from off the other end!

The Merry Maid

Oh, I am grown so free from care

Since my heart broke!

I set my throat against the air,

I laugh at simple folk!

There’s little kind and little fair

Is worth its weight in smoke

To me, that’s grown so free from care

Since my heart broke!

Lass, if to sleep you would repair

As peaceful as you woke,

Best not besiege your lover there

For just the words he spoke

To me, that’s grown so free from care

Since my heart broke!

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!

Songs of Shattering

I

The first rose on my rose-tree

Budded, bloomed, and shattered,

During sad days when to me

Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;

Still it seems a pity

No one saw,—it must have been

Very pretty.

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;

Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were here!

But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!

Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;

This or that or what you will is all the same to me;

But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through,—

There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and borrow,

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow

There’s this little street and this little house.

Sorrow

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain

Beats upon my heart.

People twist and scream in pain,—

Dawn will find them still again;

This has neither wax nor wane,

Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;

I sit in my chair.

All my thoughts are slow and brown;

Standing up or sitting down

Little matters, or what gown

Or what shoes I wear.

Witch-Wife

She is neither pink nor pale,

And she never will be all mine;

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,

And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;

In the sun ’tis a woe to me!

And her voice is a string of colored beads,

Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,

And her ways to my ways resign;

But she was not made for any man,

And she never will be all mine.

Thursday

And if I loved you Wednesday,

Well, what is that to you?

I do not love you Thursday—

So much is true.

And why you come complaining

Is more than I can see.

I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what

Is that to me?

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