Halfway to Silence (6 page)

I have been deprived of it

Because of pride,

Would not allow myself

The impossible.

Today, I have learned

That to become

A great, cracked,

Wide-open door

Into nowhere

Is wisdom.

When I was young,

I misunderstood

The Muse.

Now I am older and wiser,

I can be glad of her

As one is glad of the light.

We do not thank the light,

But rejoice in what we see

Because of it.

What I see today

Is the snow falling:

All things are made new.

Index

After All These Years,
17

After all these years
17

After the Storm,
42

After you have gone
28

Airs Above the Ground,
13

Along a Brook,,
33

Anger’s the beast in me
37

As the tide rises, the closed mollusk
44

At the Black Rock,
37

Autumn Sonnets,
39

Balcony, The,
22

Beggar, Queen, and Ghost,
34

Blurred as though it has been woken
21

Control,
32

Country of Pain, The,
35

First Autumn,
27

Fragile as a spider’s web
43

Geese, The,
48

Give me a love
18

Halfway to Silence,
5

Hold the tiger fast in check
32

How can we name it “fall,” this slow ascent
49

I carried two things around in my mind
25

I have been a beggar with a begging bowl
34

In all the summer glut of green
46

In Suffolk,
46

In the country of pain we are each alone
35

In the dark theatre lovers sit
51

I was halfway to silence
5

I watched wind ripple the field’s supple grasses
45

Jealousy,
31

June Wind,
45

Lady of the Lake, The,
26

Late Autumn,
47

Love,
43

Lover of silence, muse of the mysteries
22

Love waits for a turning of the wind
41

Low tide
57

Mal du Départ,
28

Mourning my old ways, guilt fills the mind
56

Myths Return, The,
23

Now in this armature
23

Of Molluscs,
44

Of the Muse,
61

Old Lovers at the Ballet,
51

Old Trees,
20

Old trees
20

On random wires the rows of summer swallows
47

On Sark,
55

Oriole, The,
19

Out of Touch,
36

Out there in the orchard they have come
50

Pruning the Orchard,
50

Somewhere at the bottom of the lake she is
26

Summer Tree, The,
46

The geese honked overhead
48

The isle is for islanders, some born
55

There is no poetry in lies
61

The roar of big surf and above it all night
42

The source is silted
36

The white horse floats above the field
13

Three Things,
25

Time for Rich Silence,
24

Time for rich silence
24

Turning of the Wind, The,
41

Two Songs,
18

Voice, A,
21

Water over sand
33

What do the trees in the window have to tell
27

What other lover
18

When I was a child
31

When maples wear their aureole
19

Winter Notebook, A,
57

A Biography of May Sarton

May Sarton (1912–1995) was born Eleanore Marie Sarton on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, the only child of the science historian George Sarton and the English artist Mabel Eleanor Elwes. Barely two years later, Sarton’s European childhood was interrupted by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the onset of the First World War.

Fleeing the advancing Germans, the family moved briefly to Ipswich, England, and then in 1915 to Boston, Massachusetts, where her father had accepted a position at Harvard University. Sarton’s love for poetry was first kindled at the progressive Shady Hill School, a period she wrote about extensively in
I Knew a Phoenix
, published in 1959.

At the age of twelve, Sarton traveled to Belgium for a year to live with friends of the family and study at the Institut Belge de Culture Française. There, she met the school’s founder, Marie Closset, who grew to be Sarton’s close friend and mentor, and who was the inspiration for her first novel,
The Single Hound
(1938).

On returning to the States, Sarton graduated from Cambridge High and Latin School in 1929. Although she was awarded a scholarship to Vassar College, Sarton joined actress Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre in New York instead, much to the dismay of her father. However, while learning the basics of theater, Sarton continued to develop her poems, and in 1930, when she was just eighteen, a series of her sonnets was published in
Poetry
magazine.

In 1931, Sarton returned to Europe and lived in Paris for a year while her parents were in Lebanon. In large part, Europe provided the backdrop for her encounters with the great thinkers of the age, including the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, the famed biologist Julian Huxley, and of course, Virginia Woolf. After Sarton’s own theater company failed during the Great Depression, she turned her full attention to writing and published her first poetry collection, entitled
Encounter in April
, in 1937.

For the next decade, Sarton continued to write and publish novels and poetry. In 1945, she met Judy Matlack in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the two became partners for the next thirteen years, during which she would suffer the deaths of several loved ones: her mother in 1950, Marie Closset in 1952, and her father in 1956. Following this last loss, Sarton’s relationship fell apart, and she moved to New Hampshire to start over. She was, however, to remain attached to Matlack for the rest of her life, and Matlack’s death in 1983 affected her keenly.
Honey in the Hive
, published in 1988, is about their relationship.

While the 1950s were a time of great personal upheaval for Sarton, they were a time of success in equal measure. In 1956, her novel
Faithful Are the Wounds
was nominated for a National Book Award, followed by nominations in 1958 for
The Birth of a Grandfather
and a volume of poetry,
In Time Like Air
; some consider the latter to be one of Sarton’s best books of poetry. In 1965, she published
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing
, which is frequently referred to as her coming-out novel. From then on, her work became a key point of reference in the fields of feminist and LGBT literature. Strongly opposed to being categorized as a lesbian writer, Sarton constantly strove to ensure that her portraits of humanity were relatable to a universal audience, regardless of readers’ sexual identities.

In 1974, Sarton published her first children’s book,
Punch’s Secret
, followed by
A Walk Through the Woods
in 1976. During the seventies, Sarton was diagnosed with breast cancer—the beginning of a long and arduous illness. However, she continued to work during this difficult period and received a spate of critical acclaim for her literary contributions.

In 1990, she suffered a severe stroke that reduced her concentration span and her ability to write, although she did continue to dictate her journals when she could. Sarton died of breast cancer on July 16, 1995. She is buried in Nelson, New Hampshire.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Some of these poems have appeared in
Adam (London), Bennington Review, Choumia, Christopher Street, Hardscuffle, Impact, New York Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Weid, Yankee

Copyright © 1980 by May Sarton

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4804-7430-7

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY MAY SARTON

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA