October 19, 1950

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 to October 19, 1950) came in from the cold of solitary geniusness, and after many many romances, married a wealthy business man in 1923. They were happy. Millay, the definition of lyric life, showed how even a Pulitzer Prize, (1923) did not render her totally impractical about how far you can use the currency of youth and wit.

This poem gives a sense of her literary gifts, and is interesting for the light it sheds on the tastes of cultivated audiences in the first half of the 20th century. Millay was widely regarded as a brilliant writer.  "I Too Beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sex" is dated 1939.


I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex,
Go forth at nightfall crying like a cat,
Leaving the lofty tower I laboured at
For birds to foul and boys and girls to vex
With tittering chalk; and you, and the long necks
Of neighbours sitting where their mothers sat
Are well aware of shadowy this and that
In me, that’s neither noble nor complex.
Such as I am, however, I have brought
To what it is, this tower; it is my own;
Though it was reared To Beauty, it was wrought
From what I had to build with: honest bone
Is there, and anguish; pride; and burning thought;
And lust is there, and nights not spent alone.

What is lacking of course, is intellectual probity.