A dead woman, Amelia Garrick, speaks from a neglected grave overrun by thickets near a fence. She addresses another woman who has risen to wealth and social prominence in New York, admired from a distance. By worldly standards, the living woman has succeeded and Amelia has failed—Amelia is dead while the other is celebrated. But Amelia insists the real victory is hers. She claims to have vanquished the other woman’s spirit and says that even from this forgotten spot, she remains the unconquerable power over her life, robbing it of complete triumph. The voice is bitter, envious, yet strangely vindicated, and the atmosphere is eerie and unsettling: beneath the surface of success, an old rivalry or wound still gives the forgotten dead a hidden hold over the living.
Amelia Garrick — Summary
Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush In a forgotten place near the fence Where the thickets from Siever’s woods Have crept over, growing sparsely. And you, you are a leader in New York, The wife of a noted millionaire, A name in the society columns, Beautiful, admired, magnified perhaps By the mirage of distance. You have succeeded, I have failed In the eyes of the world. You are alive, I am dead. Yet I know that I vanquished your spirit; And I know that lying here far from you, Unheard of among your great friends In the brilliant world where you move, I am really the unconquerable power over your life That robs it of complete triumph.