Two American Poets
Arthur Davison Ficke (1883-1945) and the much more famous Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1945) carried on an apparently platonic love affair in the 1910s, though by 1923 they had largely drifted apart. It was an epistolary affair in some respects, as illustrated in part by an interesting examination of one of Millay’s letters to Ficke, from October 1921: https://theamericanreader.com/19-october-1921-edna-st-vincent-milay-to-arthur-davison-ficke/ Both Millay and Ficke were longtime friends of another literary figure of the period, the poet Witter Bynner, whom they called ‘Hal’ (see my two posts on him below).
Mentioned by Millay in the letter are lines from her poem entitled ‘Weeds’ and found in her collection ‘Second April’ and you can read the whole poem here:
WHITE with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky !-
Life is a quest and love a quarrel-
Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,
And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,
The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
Like flowers that bear an honest name.
And here a while, where no wind brings
The baying of a pack athirst,
May sleep the sleep of blessèd things
The blood too bright, the brow accurst.
And here is a quote from the American Reader article, but be sure to check it out-it’s well worth the time:
Do you remember that poem in Second April which says, “Life is a quest & love a quarrel, Here is a place for me to lie!”?-That is what I want of you-out of the sight & sound of other people, to lie close to you & let the world rush by. To watch with you suns rising & moons rising in that purple edge outside most people’s vision-to hear high music that only birds can hear-oh, my dearest, dearest, would it not be wonderful, just once to be together again for a little while?
(Just as I wrote those last words the muezzin began to cry his prayer from the little white minaret-he is still singing-)
One is so silly, isn’t one?-Listening to him it seemed that he was calling us to worship-heaven knows what-something that we both hold dear.
Arthur Davison Ficke (1883-1945)
Arthur Davison Ficke, Edna St. Vincent Millay and her husband, Eugen Boissevain. / Manuscript Division, Millay Papers, Library of Congress.
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