Edith Wharton didn't only write novels
Wharton Wednesday: Two poems by the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist
For this week’s Wharton Wednesday, let’s take a look at two of Edith Wharton’s love poems. In her autobiography, A Backward Glance, Wharton reflects that poetry was her “chiefest passion and greatest joy.” When she was just 18 years old, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow read her poems and, impressed by their command of language and style, arranged to have some of them published in The Atlantic Monthly.
But it took a long time for Wharton’s poetry to be widely available. Thanks to noted scholar Irene Goldman-Price, we now have a beautiful and comprehensive collection of Wharton’s poetry: Selected Poems of Edith Wharton.
**Details for our upcoming close reading of The Age of Innocence, including our start date and prep materials, will be shared soon!**
Wharton’s “chiefest passion”
In Wharton’s poetry she departs from many of the topics and themes we know she covered in her novels. And we find a bit less of that satiric and biting wit of so many of her short stories. In her poetry, instead, we find passionate rumination on love, deep readings of Greek mythology, and Wharton’s signature rhythm and style that evidence her dedication to the craft.
Today, I’m sharing two of my favorites.
Nothing More
(from 1878)‘Twas the old, old story told again,
The story we all have heard;
A glimpse of brightness, parting and pain —
You know it word for word.A stolen picture—a faded rose—
An evening hushed and bright;
A whisper—perhaps a kiss—who knows?
A handclasp, and “goodnight.”The sum of what we call “first love,”
That dream flower rare and white,
That puts its magic blossom forth
And dies in a single night.
Ame Close
(from February 21, 1908, in her journal for Morton Fullerton)My soul is like a house that dwellers nigh
Can see no light in. “Ah, poor house,” they say,
”Long since its owners died or went their way.
Thick ivy loops the rusted door-latch tie,
The chimney rises cold against the sky,
And flowers turned weed down the bare path’s decay…”
Yet one stray passer, at the shut of day,
Sees a light tremble in a casement high.
Even so, my soul would set a light for you,
A light invisible to all beside,
As though a lover’s ghost should yearn and glide
From pane to pane, to let the flame shine through.
Yet enter not, lest, as it flits ahead,
You see the hand that carries it is dead.
If you have questions or ideas for The Age of Innocence read-a-long, please submit them on this form and I’ll address your ideas in one of our weekly chapter guides.
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. I received my copy of The Age of Innocence through Bookshop.org. What a great resource. My husband and I are going to be traveling for the rest of the month - I will be ready to dive in as soon as we return! Happy Wharton Wednesday.
Wow! These gave me goosebumps, especially the second one.
I've read The Age Of Innocence and am not too fond of it (to be fair, when I read it I was only chasing after the 100 books goal mark for the year, it was hardly the fun activity reading is supposed to be, which is why I plan to re-read it again someday) but I think I'm going to check out her poetry now. I don't read a lot of poetry, just a few Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson poems, I think the second one kind of gave me a similar impression, I don't think I can exactly explain it.