Valentine

By Elinor Wylie 1885–1928 Elinor Wylie

Too high, too high to pluck

My heart shall swing.

A fruit no bee shall suck,

No wasp shall sting.

If on some night of cold

It falls to ground

In apple-leaves of gold

I’ll wrap it round.

And I shall seal it up

With spice and salt,

In a carven silver cup,

In a deep vault.

Before my eyes are blind

And my lips mute,

I must eat core and rind

Of that same fruit.

Before my heart is dust

At the end of all,

Eat it I must, I must

Were it bitter gall.

But I shall keep it sweet

By some strange art;

Wild honey I shall eat

When I eat my heart.

O honey cool and chaste

As clover’s breath!

Sweet Heaven I shall taste

Before my death.

Source: Nets to Catch the Wind (1921)

Biography

Extravagantly praised in her lifetime, the poet and novelist Elinor Wylie suffered a posthumous reversal in her reputation but has experienced something of a revival of interest among feminist critics since the 1980s.

Wylie was born in Somerville, New Jersey to a socially prominent family, and grew up in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. As the daughter of a lawyer who later became solicitor general of the United . . .

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