Edna St Vincent Millay died in October 1950, pitching headfirst down the stairs. But not before she had sent a poem, “Thanksgiving…1950” off to The Saturday Evening Post. If you want to read the whole thing, you can enter those titles in your search box.
I have tried to find out what had happened in 1950, what was the threatening, portentous event she is mirroring? Does anybody know? Was the Korean “Police action” this big a deal?Cuz this poem coulda been written after 9/11.
Here, at random, are some of the lines, which I chose for my traditional Thanksgiving recital in years past. ( I reward myself for all my labor by reciting a poem when I make my Thanksgiving toast. My guests love it! or, well, at least they’re used to it by now… but I think this year I’ll say Malcolm Guite’s Thanksgiving Sonnet).
Back to Millay:
“Hard, hard it is this anxious Autumn
To lift the heavy mind from its dark forebodings
To sit at this bright feast, and with ruddy cheer
Give thanks for the harvest of a troubled year.
Ah, but is it right to feast in a time so solemn?
Should we not, rather, fast, and give the day to prayer?
Prayer yes, but fasting , no.
Soldier and citizen alike, we are a marching column,
And how long the march may be, and over what terrain
Nor how much of hunger, hardship and pain
We may be called on to endure, we do not know. And fortitude
Takes muscle, and needs food.
Never more dear than in a thoughtful hour like this
Are the faces around the table; each stands out
More sharply, and is looked at longer,
And smiles are deep, from behind the eyes
And somewhat quizzical, lest they go too far in tenderness.»
[Tru DAT, Edna!]
If you like poetry, I hope you’ll read the entire thing , especially since what I’m posting here is from memory.
Oh there’s lots more good stuff! But I’ll just give you the ending: in fellowship, in gratitude for your cyber-companionship, in tremulous hope for our country:
“From the apprehensive present, from a future packed
With unknown dangers, monstrous, terrible and new,
Let us turn for comfort to this simple fact:
We have been in trouble before—and we came through! “