“Fire and Sleet and Candlelight” by Elinor Wylie

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 20, 2018   Fire and Sleet and Candlelight   Elinor Wylie

For this you've striven     Daring, to fail: Your sky is riven     Like a tearing veil.   For this, you've wasted     Wings of your youth; Divined, and tasted     Bitter springs of truth.   From sand unslakèd     Twisted strong cords, And wandered naked     Among trysted swords.   There's a word unspoken,     A knot untied. Whatever is broken     The earth may hide.   The road was jagged     Over sharp stones: Your body's too ragged     To cover your bones.   The wind scatters     Tears upon dust; Your soul's in tatters     Where the spears thrust.   Your race is ended—     See, it is run: Nothing is mended     Under the sun.   Straight as an arrow     You fall to a sleep Not too narrow     And not too deep.                This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   "Fire and Sleet and Candlelight" was published in Nets to Catch the Wind (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921).   Elinor Wylie was born in New Jersey in 1885. Her collections of poetry include Black Armour (George H. Doran Company, 1923) and Angels and Earthly Creatures (Alfred A. Knopf, 1929). She died in 1928. Poetry by Wylie   Selected Works of Elinor Wylie (Kent State University Press, 2005) "Alms" by Edna St. Vincent Millay "We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd" by Walt Whitman "Dreams" by Amy Lowell May Guest Editor: Matthew Shenoda   Thanks to Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shenoda and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038