International Poetry Day, again

[oursin]

Not for That City
By Charlotte Mew

Not for that city of the level sun,
Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—
The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,
White nights, or nights and days that are as one—
We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.
We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see
What, from the threshold of eternity
We shall step into. No, I think we shun
The splendour of that everlasting glare,
The clamour of that never-ending song.
And if for anything we greatly long,
It is for some remote and quiet stair
Which winds to silence and a space for sleep
Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.

Comments

[kore]

She is wonderful.

[qian]

Thanks for sharing! I liked the Penelope Fitzgerald biography of Charlotte Mew but I don't know that I've read anything BY Mew, before now.

[oursin]

That is a great biography.

At least one of the anthologies in the family home had one or two poems by Mew - I remember 'The Farmer's Bride', but it's quite long and very sad.

[starshipfox]

I really admire Mew's work! Thank you for sharing a poem by her. I was so glad that Faber put out a selection of her work recently -- before that I could only find her in anthologies.