T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Sonnet: I, being born a woman and distressed
By Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950)(1921) I, BEING born a woman and distressed | |
By all the needs and notions of my kind, | |
Am urged by your propinquity to find | |
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest | |
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast: | 5 |
So subtly is the fume of life designed, | |
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, | |
And leave me once again undone, possessed. | |
Think not for this, however, the poor treason | |
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, | 10 |
I shall remember you with love, or season | |
My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain: | |
I find this frenzy insufficient reason | |
For conversation when we meet again. | |