For love he offered me his perfect world. This world was so constricted, and so small, It had no sort of loveliness at all, And I flung back the little silly ball. At that cold moralist I hotly hurled, His perfect pure symmetrical small world.
If I had peace to sit and sing, Then I could make a lovely thing; But I am stung with goads and whips, So I build songs like iron ships.
Let it be something for my song, If it is sometimes swift and strong.
She took the summer to her blood Through her sweet mouth. Until her sleepy mood Was warm as sunny walls of the old south.
It seemed the yellow light Had fruitful powers, Beneath her bosom's white Leapt sudden flowers.
Each round as the breast From whose dear core it sprang, And in the middle of each flower a nest, In which a young bird sang;
Sang for joy of a coming And for joy of a name, And the petals of the flower Leapt like flame.
Driving with a sweet compelling Towards his dwelling, As her singing birds were telling.
I WOULD live for a day and a night, In the rigorous land where everything's right.
Then I would sit and make a song, In the leisurely land where everything's wrong.
Am I pleasant? Tell me that, old Wise! Let me look into your eyes, To see if you can comprehend my beauty, That is a lover's duty. I look at you to see If you can think of anything but me. Ah, you remember praise and your philosophy! My love shall be a sphere of silence and of light, Where Love is all alone with love's delight. —
Here is a woodcutter who is so weak With love of me, he cannot speak. Tell me, dumb man, am I pleasant, am I pleasant? Farewell, philosopher! I love a peasant.
Shall I mock you, and tell you that love shall endure. Knowing you know the quality of things that are secure? Let love be fierce as lightning, and as brief As summer-hail, that is a storm's relief.
If I live all my days by routine, Keeping days ordered and ways clean, Will there be room for Love in my life? Love who is born in storm, and lives in strife.
Deadly destructive to my man and me Are my rare fits of sore morality.
A mad, domestic hell begins When woman hides her virtues, and displays her sins.
Anna Wickham was an English poet born in 1883 and died in 1947. Her poetry addressed themes of women's autonomy, motherhood, and mental distress with unusual candor for her time. She employed a lyrical yet plainspoken style, often using colloquial diction and direct emotional address. Wickham is associated with the early modernist movement and was part of London's literary circles in the 1910s and 1920s. Her collections include The Contemplative Quarry (1915) and The Man with a Hammer (1916), which articulated a distinctly female perspective on love, domesticity, and creative ambition. Though she was not widely recognized during her lifetime, her work has been reassessed as an important predecessor to later feminist poetry. She also wrote about her own experiences of institutionalization and personal struggle, making her a significant figure in the history of confessional writing. Wickham's poetry continues to be studied for its contribution to modernist verse and its challenge to conventional gender roles.
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