Poetess

 

 

 

 

   We used to go for walks on the forest trails when we were younger, when Time was all that we had. She would lead and I would follow close behind, my eyes focused on the back of her head and slender neck. We were two college students, ready to tackle the world and everyone that was stupid enough to stand in our way.  We were important, thinking ourselves to be goddesses, never to be soiled by mortal hands.

            After our last class on Wednesdays ended at approximately 1:45pm, we would grab our backpacks and run to the cafeteria where we would load up on obscene amounts of fruit – our lunch during our walk. The trails that we walked were behind our dorm building, giving us easy access to Nature and peace.

            Not a sound could be heard from the university while we walked; to us, it was as though we left our current world for something better, some that only we could understand. The trip would always be the same: after walking for some time, she would find a secluded spot for us to rest and eat, usually finding several trees close together so we could rest our backs against the rough yet stable trunks. There, under the cover of trees and silence, we would eat our fruit and read poetry to each other.

            We would read from tattered and marked books containing the works of Plath and Millay, of ****inson and Sappho, and many other women poets from the past and present. It was during this ritual that we dreamt that our names would be spoken with them as great poetesses, being seduced by their words and in turn, hoping that we would seduce others with our own.

            Her favourite was Sophie Jewett, a Victorian poet whose life was not well known. She discovered her by accident one day while looking through a poetry website and soon was captivated by her words. She loved reading her poems out loud because they felt cool and slick gliding across her tongue; she was clearly in love with Ms. Jewett.

            “I want to know her like a lover,” she told me after spending five minutes one day telling me about her discovery of Sophie. “I want her to breathe through me.” Others thought her to be mad and desperately lonely, but I knew better. I knew exactly what she meant although my passion for the written word was not as fervent as hers. Perhaps I should have known then but I was young and in love as well. We both were.

            The years came and went and soon we both graduated from university with degrees in English. We then enrolled in graduate school for our M.A.s and then our PhDs and within the blink of an eye, we were professors, pillars of the academic and literary societies. We were also published writers in both poetry and literature, winners of awards and special recognitions.  At first, people did not take us seriously, thinking us to be just young spinsters with nothing better to do but soon even the most discerning voice was soon silenced in awe of what we had accomplished. We lived together, wrote together, and sometimes made love when our writing passions seemed to overtake us. Our bond was beyond that of any romantic friendship or relationship. We understood each other in ways that many people could and should not. We were each other’s Muse, giving each other constant fuel for our souls. We were truly alive.

            I still ask myself if I could have changed what happened to her; was the progression too fast for me to stop? Was I blind to what was truly going on? I still don’t know. Maybe I should no longer care.

            I still remember the day: Friday, the day for us to order Chinese food and then crawl through a bookstore. On Friday, I always arrived home first then she would come home thirty minutes later. When I arrived home, I stretched out on our very plush couch and pulled one of my books off the side table to read in peace.

            Suddenly, I heard a strange noise coming from our library. I stopped reading for am moment, trying to listen to it and figure out its source. It sounded like paper being ripped apart. After several minutes of listening, I nervously got up and walked down the hallway with my book still in my hand, wondering if I needed to get one of our baseball bats in case it was a burglar.  I noticed that the door to the library was ajar, the noise becoming louder and louder with no sounds of it stopping.

            When I reached the door, I could barely see into the room but I did see a figure seated on the floor, calmly tearing out pages from one of our books. With anger now in my sight, for who would be so disrespectful towards a book like that?,  I slammed the door open and almost fainted at what I saw. There was my roommate and friend, sitting on the floor with a book in her hand, tearing out each page with precision. Her hair, usually pulled back into a ponytail, was loose and limp on her head as though she had been sweating profusely. Her eyes were focused on something that only she could see, something that seemed to hold her in its thrall. She ripped a page from the book then placed it in her mouth then she ripped another page and threw it on the ground. She chewed what pages she had in her mouth, swallowing them as if the book was a part of a five course meal, only to stuff her mouth with more and more pages. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I walked up to her.

            She seemed to have felt my presence, for she stopped ripping the pages and soon her eyes were focused on me.  She smiled and told me that she loved me, as one poetess should love another.  I asked her why she was eating pages from a book (in a calm tone for I was unsure as to her mindset at this point) and she replied, “Sophie needs me,” in an eerily calm tone. “Sophie wants to be free.”

            “Free from what?”

            “Free from the pages, the words that bind her. She wants to be free and only I can do it. I am poetess; I have the power to save her.”  Her eyes then dropped all contact with me and soon, she was back in her own world, ripping out pages from the book and eating them slowly, trying to free Sophie Jewett from the words. I stood there for a moment, staring at her, not really sure what to do. She was my friend, fellow poetess, and sometimes lover, but now . . . I slowly walked out of the room and closed the door behind me, the sounds of ripping pages burning in my mind. I went back to the couch and picked up a magazine to read. I felt numb.

            She stopped showing up for her classes, claiming to me that Sophie needed her constantly. The department, after I explained to them what had happened, gave her a leave of absence with the promise that once better, would come back to teach. Deep inside of me, I knew that she would never teach again. What I did not know was that the department felt the same way but was kind enough to at least make a show of trying to keep her employed.

            She stayed in the library, reading and eating pages of Sophie Jewett poetry, claiming that she could feel her breaking free that finally, the world would know of her life and her poetry. My fellow Muse was going to be the one to do it. She bathed constantly, claiming that she wanted her body to be clean and ready for when Sophie would be free. She refused to eat food but continued to eat her pages, claiming it gave her strength. 

            The days passed. I went to work and taught as best as I could although she was on my mind constantly. As soon as my classes were over for the day, I raced home to check up on her, making sure she did not commit suicide or something just as dangerous.

            Then one day, I noticed that she looked different. I could not put my finger on it, only that she looked  . . . different. When I walked into the library to do my usual check up on her, her eyes immediately focused on me, lighting up her entire face as she smiled at me.  She was no longer eating pages for she had consumed the entire book and several others. I smiled back, not really sure what else to do but I was happy that at least she was smiling.

            “Come and sit with me,” she said in a voice that was definitely not my friend’s while waving a hand in my direction. I cautiously sat down next to her and she grabbed my hands and began to kiss them. I could only stare at her . . . and stare, because this was no longer my roommate. Her facial structure had changed, her hair colour had changed, and even her eyes had changed. She was now someone else. I swallowed nervously then spoke.

            “Sophie?” She looked up at the sound of that name and smiled.

            “I am forever grateful to your friend for what she did for me. I am free now.”

            “Where is my friend? Is she  . . . inside of you?”

            “She is and yet . . . not. I now occupy this body; she is now a good memory to me.”  She released my hands then took my face in her own. For a moment, she stared into my eyes and I felt as though I was being mentally interrogated and ashamed although I was innocent. Her eyes held me and I could not look away.  I knew then just what my friend saw that first night.

 

 

           

            People ask me if my friend moved, to which I always say yes. She found another teaching job, one that would pay her more money and who could refuse that? They nod and smile at me then walk away to their own lives while I am still sorting through my own. Sophie (she prefers me to call her Jewett) lives with me, spending her days getting used to the ways of the modern world and writing poetry.  At first, I would not speak to her, going about my day and ignoring her altogether. I wanted to punish her for taking my friend away from me.

            “She gave herself up for me,” Jewett said repeatedly, trying to get me to understand. “She wanted this to happen.”

            “So that you could be alive again? Wasn’t that selfish of you?”

            “No, not at all. Her love of poetry was so great that she offered her own self in order to give my words life again. People had forgotten me and she wanted that to change. She felt that my life and my words were important enough to be rescued and revived.” After some time had passed, I began to understand just what she meant; my friend loved Sophie’s words so much that in her own way, she gave them life again so that others would know of her. 

            Under the pages are breaths taken deliberately slow.

            Under the pages beats a heart.

            Under the pages is a Poetess.

 

                       

 

Several Poems by Sophie Jewett

(From the Poetry Foundation www.poetryfoundation.org)

 

 

 

 

Across the Border

by Sophie Jewett

I have read somewhere that the birds of fairyland
are white as snow.—W. B. Yeats


Where all the trees bear golden flowers,
   And all the birds are white;
Where fairy folk in dancing hours
   Burn stars for candlelight;

Where every wind and leaf can talk,
   But no man understand
Save one whose child-feet chanced to walk
   Green paths of fairyland;

I followed two swift silver wings;
   I stalked a roving song;
I startled shining, silent things;
   I wandered all day long.

But when it seemed the shadowy hours
   Whispered of soft-foot night,
I crept home to sweet common flowers,
   Brown birds, and candlelight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defeated

by Sophie Jewett

When the last fight is lost, the last sword broken;
The last call sounded, the last order spoken;
When from the field where braver hearts lie sleeping,
Faint, and athirst, and blinded, I come creeping,
With not one waving shred of palm to bring you,
With not one splendid battle-song to sing you,
O Love, in my dishonor and defeat,
Your measureless compassion will be sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To a Child

by Sophie Jewett

The leaves talked in the twilight, dear;
   Hearken the tale they told:
How in some far-off place and year,
   Before the world grew old,

I was a dreaming forest tree,
   You were a wild, sweet bird
Who sheltered at the heart of me
   Because the north wind stirred;

How, when the chiding gale was still,
   When peace fell soft on fear,
You stayed one golden hour to fill
   My dream with singing, dear.

To-night the self-same songs are sung
   The first green forest heard;
My heart and the gray world grow young—
   To shelter you, my bird.

 

 

White Head

by Sophie Jewett

Prone on the northern water,
   That laps him about the breast,
Like the Sphinx in the sand, forever
   The giant lies in rest.

The sails drive swift before him,
   And the surf beats at his lip,
But the gray eyes look out seaward
   Noting nor wave nor ship.

The centuries drift over,
   He marks not with smile nor frown,
Drift over him cloud and sea-gull,
   Swallow and thistledown.

I, of the race that passes,
   Quick with its hope and its fear,
Lean on his brow and question,
   Plead at his senseless ear:

“What of thy past unmeasured?
   And what of the peoples gone?
What of the sea’s first singing?
   What of the primal dawn?

“What was the weird that bowed thee?
   How did the struggle cease?
Out of what Titan anguish
   Issued thy hopeless peace?”

Nothing the pale lips utter,
   What hath been, nor what shall be;
Under the brow’s stern shadow,
   The gray eyes look to sea.

The blue glows round and over,
   Thin-veiled, as it were God’s face;
I feel the breath, the spirit,
   That knows nor time nor space.

And my heart grieves for the giant
   In his pitiful repose,
Mocked by the vagrant gladness
   Of a laggard brier-rose;

Mocked to his face from seaward
   By the flash and whirl of wings;
Mocked from the grass above him,
   By life that creeps and sings.

I care not for his wisdom,
   His secret unconfessed;
I yearn toward rose and cricket,
   Ephemeral and blest.

Ah! if he might, how would he
   Quicken to love and to tears;
For my immortal minute
   Barter his endless years!

He rests on the restless water,
   And I on the grasses brown,
Drift over us cloud and sea-gull,
   Swallow and thistledown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armistice

by Sophie Jewett

The water sings along our keel,
   The wind falls to a whispering breath;
I look into your eyes and feel
   No fear of life or death;
So near is love, so far away
The losing strife of yesterday.

We watch the swallow skim and dip;
   Some magic bids the world be still;
Life stands with finger upon lip;
   Love hath his gentle will;
Though hearts have bled, and tears have burned,
The river floweth unconcerned.

We pray the fickle flag of truce
   Still float deceitfully and fair;
Our eyes must love its sweet abuse;
   This hour we will not care,
Though just beyond to-morrow's gate,
Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pilgrim

by Sophie Jewett

"Such a palmer ne'er was seene,
Lesse Love himselfe had palmer beene."
Never too late.

Pilgrim feet, pray whither bound?
Pilgrim eyes, pray whither bent?
Sandal-shod and travel-gowned,
Lo, I seek the way they went
Late who passed toward Holy Land.

Pilgrim, it was long ago;
None remains who saw that band;
Grass and forest overgrow
Every path their footing wore.
Men are wise; they seek no more
Roads that lead to Holy Land.

Proud his look, as who should say:
I shall find where lies the way.

Pilgrim, thou art fair of face,
Staff and scrip are not for thee;
Gentle pilgrim, of thy grace,
Leave thy quest, and bide with me.
Love shall serve thee, joy shall bless;
Thou wert made for tenderness:
God's green world is fair and sweet;
Not o'er sea and Eastern strand,
But where friend and lover meet
Lies the way to Holy Land.

Low his voice, his lashes wet:
One day if God will—not yet.

Pilgrim, pardon me and heed.
Men of old who took that way
Went for fame of goodly deed,
Or, if sooth the stories say,
Sandalled priest, or knight in selle,
Flying each in pain and hate,
Harassed by stout fiends of hell,
Sought his crime to expiate.
Prithee, Pilgrim, go not hence;
Clear thy brow, and white thy hand,
What shouldst thou with penitence?
Wherefore seek to Holy Land?

Stern the whisper on his lip:
Sin and shame are in my scrip.

Pilgrim, pass, since it must be;
Take thy staff, and have thy will;
Prayer and love shall follow thee;
I will watch thee o'er the hill.
What thy fortune God doth know;
By what paths thy feet must go.
Far and dim the distance lies,
Yet my spirit prophesies:
Not in vigil lone and late,
Bowed upon the tropic sand,
But within the city gate,
In the struggle of the street,
Suddenly thine eyes shall meet
His whose look is Holy Land.

Smiled the pilgrim, sad and sage:
Long must be my pilgrimage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Spirits Walk

by Sophie Jewett

“I have heard (but not believed) the spirits of the dead
May walk again.”
Winter’s Tale

If spirits walk, Love, when the night climbs slow
The slant footpath where we were wont to go,
      Be sure that I shall take the self-same way
      To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray,
Sheer, gravelled slope, where vetches straggling grow.

Look for me not when gusts of winter blow,
When at thy pane beat hands of sleet and snow;
   I would not come thy dear eyes to affray,
               If spirits walk.

But when, in June, the pines are whispering low,
And when their breath plays with thy bright hair so
      As some one's fingers once were used to play—
      That hour when birds leave song, and children pray,
Keep the old tryst, sweetheart, and thou shalt know
               If spirits walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Harvest

by Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;
I linger, for the hay is sweet,
New-cut and curing in the sun.
Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,
Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent
When, yesterday, the west wind went
A-rioting through grass and grain.
To-day no least breath stirs the plain;
Only the hot air, quivering, yields
Illusive motion to the fields
Where not the slenderest tassel swings.
Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings;
A goldfinch dangles from a tall,
Full-flowered yellow mullein; all
The world seems turning blue and gold.
Unstartled, since, even from of old,
Beauty has brought keen sense of her,
I feel the withering grasses stir;
Along the edges of the wheat,
I hear the rustle of her feet:
And yet I know the whole sea lies,
And half the earth, between our eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Song

by Sophie Jewett

“O Love, thou art winged and swift,
   Yet stay with me evermore!”
And I guarded my house with bolt and bar
   Lest Love fly forth at the door.

Without, in the world, ’t was cold,
   While Love and I together
Laughed and sang by my red hearth-fire,
   Nor knew it was winter weather.

Sweet Love would lull me to sleep,
   In his tireless arm caressed;
His shadowing wings and burning eyes
   Like night and stars wrought rest.

And ever the beat of Love’s heart
   As a chime rang at my ear;
And ever Love’s bending, beautiful face
   Covered me close from fear.

Was it long ere I waked alone?
   A snow-drift whitened the floor;
I saw spent ashes upon my hearth
   And Death in my open door.