An interlude with Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

Dame Sitwell

Allyson from Kimberton, USA, sent a poem to my husband’s wonderful Red Hand Files by the brilliant Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell. We both loved it and I thought I would share with you all. Thank you so much, Allyson. The Stuff Page, this epic project, is coming up to its three hundredth post and is always in need of help – especially with a poem as priceless as this one. I hope you don’t mind me stealing it and putting up on the Stuff Page. Much love to you, Allyson - Love, Susie - with “bird-blood leaping in my veins!”

Interlude

Amid this hot green glowing gloom
A word falls with a raindrop’s boom

Like baskets of ripe fruit in air
The bird-songs seem, suspended where

Those goldfinches—the ripe warm lights
Peck slyly at them—take quick flights

My feet are feathered like a bird
Among the shadows scarcely heard;

I bring you branches green with dew
And fruits that you may crown anew

Your whirring waspish-gilded hair
Amid this cornucopia—

Until your warm lips bear the stains
And bird-blood leap within your veins.

Dame Sitwell