Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, commonly known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and poet, renowned for her prolific writing and her association with the Bloomsbury Group. She achieved great success with her novels and significant acclaim for her poetry, particularly in the early 20th century. In addition to her literary pursuits, Sackville-West was also known for her creation of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, which remain celebrated to this day.

March 9, 1892

June 2, 1962

English

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A Creed

    That I should live and look with open eyes
    I count as half my claim to Paradise.
    I have not crept beneath cathedral arches,
    But bathed in streams beneath the silver larches;

    And have not grovelled to the Sunday priest,
    But found an unconfined and daily feast;
    Was called ungodly, and to those who blamed
    Laughed back defiance and was not ashamed.

    Some hold their duty to be mournful; why?
    I cannot love your weeping poets; I
    Am sad in winter, but in summer gay,
    And vary with each variable day.

    And though the pious cavilled at my mirth,
    At least I rendered thanks for God's fair earth,
    Grateful that I, among the murmuring rest,
    Was not an unappreciative guest.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

A Saxon Song

        Tools with the comely names,
        Mattock and scythe and spade,
        Couth and bitter as flames,
        Clean, and bowed in the blade,
A man and his tools make a man and his trade.

        Breadth of the English shires,
        Hummock and kame and mead,
        Tang of the reeking byres,
        Land of the English breed,
A man and his land make a man and his creed.

        Leisurely flocks and herds,
        Cool-eyed cattle that come
        Mildly to wonted words,
        Swine that in orchards roam,
A man and his beasts make a man and his home.

        Children sturdy and flaxen
        Shouting in brotherly strife,
        Like the land they are Saxon,
        Sons of a man and his wife,
For a man and his l...

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Bitterness

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild
Even in indignation, taking by the hand
One that obeyed them mutely, as a child
Submissive to a law he does not understand.

They would not blame the sins his passion wrought.
No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We
Only deplore ...' saying they only sought
To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he

Following them with unrecalcitrant tread,
Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities,
Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head
Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes

Her motionless figure on the road. The song
Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell,
Full of young glory as a bugle; strong;
Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!'
<...

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - Dhji-Han-Ghir. For H.N.

    For years it had been neglected,
    This wilderness garden of ours,
    And its ruin had shone reflected
    In its pools through abandoned hours.
    For none had cared for its beauty
    Till we came, the strangers, the Giaours,
    And none had thought of a duty
    Towards its squandering flowers.

    Of broken wells and fountains
    There were half a dozen or more,
    And, beyond the sea, the mountains
    Of that far Bithynian shore
    Were blue in the purple distance
    And white was the cap they wore,
    And never in our existence
    Had life seemed brighter before!

    And the fruit-trees grew in profusion,
    Quince and pomegranate and wine,
    And the roses in rich confusion
    With the lilac intertwine,

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - Leblebidji*

    I know so well the busy cries
    That echo through the quarter
    Till daylight into evening dies
    And stars shine in the water,
    So dear they have become to me,
    Leblebidji! leblebidji!

    On peaceful English country nights
    Their rapid gay succession
    And all the sea-reflected lights
    Will pass from my possession,
    But never from my memory,
    Leblebidji! leblebidji!

    Past English evening scents and sounds,
    Past English church-bells ringing,
    The Turkish watchman on his rounds,
    The Turkish pedlar singing
    Through narrow streets above the sea
    "Leblebidji! leblebidji,"

    Will surely pierce a ghostly way,
    The music underlying,
    And in the shades of falling day
...

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - Retour En Songe

    After a dream-dim voyage
    We came with sails all set
    Towards the city of the sea,
    And it was wonderful to me
    To find her reigning yet.

    Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
    Had feasted on before!
    The evening mosques were brushed with gold,
    The water lapped a lazy fold
    Upon that lovely shore;

    The gardens of her terraced hills
    Rose up above the port,
    And little houses half concealed
    The presence of a light revealed,
    And here my journey's end was sealed,
    And I reached the home I sought.

    Those windows I had opened wide
    To welcome in the sun!
    Those stairs that only happy feet
    Had measured with their running beat!
    That well-remembered winding street!

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - The Greek Han

    A sunny court with wooden balconies,
    And wool hung out to dry in gaudy skeins,
    A fountain, and some pigeons murmuringly
    Picking up yellow grains.

    Pass through a little tumble-down green door
    Into the dark and crowded shop; the Turk
    Crouching above the brasier, smiles and nods;
    'Tis all his daily work.

    Here marble heads and alabaster jars,
    Fragments of porphyry and Persian tiles,
    Lie heaped in ruin, and at our dismay
    The old Turk shrugs and smiles,

    And sips his coffee, reaching out a hand
    To throw upon the brasier at his feet
    A handful of dried herbs, whose sudden smoke
    Rises up incense-sweet.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - The Muezzin

    Above the city at his feet,
    Above the dome, above the sea,
    He rises unconfined and free
    To break upon the noonday heat.

    He turns around the parapet,
    Black-robed against the marble tower;
    His singing gains or loses power
    In pacing round the minaret.

    A brother to the singing birds
    He never knew restraining walls,
    But freely rises, freely falls
    The rhythm of the sacred words.

    I would that it to me were given
    To climb each day the muezzin's stair
    And in the warm and silent air
    To sing my heart out into Heaven.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - Yanghin Var*

    As the baying of wolves from afar,
    Borne on the wind from the Golden Horn
    A cry in the distance, long-drawn,
    "Yanghin var! yanghin var!"

    Suddenly waking the silent night,
    Suddenly breaking the sleeping calm,
    The long, far, wailing alarm,
    And the watch-tower startles a warning light.

    As a torch passed from hand to hand,
    As a beacon springing from hill to hill,
    The cry draws nearer though distant still,
    And the watch throws it on from stand to stand,

    And the voices rise as a tempest far,
    As the swell of waves on a rocky shore,
    Each rumbles louder than before,
    "Yanghin var! yanghin var!"

    And as the angel's unpausing feet,
    The angel bearing the wrath of the Lord,

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople, March MCMXV

    I
    Queen of a double empire still she stands,
    And watches with superb indifferent eyes
    The eager wooing of Imperial hands
    Towards so fair and coveted a prize.

    Royal and imperial suitors has she known
    Pass one by one across her dreaming years,
    And some a while have climbed the golden throne,
    And some have passed away in blood and tears;

    For many emperors have sought her grace
    Since the first Constantine in sweeping cloak
    Her seven hills with broad unhurrying pace
    Measured, and rested not till Heaven spoke.

    A haughty fatalist Byzantium waits
    What chance the storing centuries bring forth:
    Another lover almost at the gates,
    Heralded by the cannon of the North,

    A Nor...

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Convalescence

    When I am in the Orient once again,
    And turn into the gay and squalid street,
    One side in the shadow, one in vivid heat,
    The thought of England, fresh beneath the rain,
    Will rise unbidden as a gently pain.
    The lonely hours of illness, as they beat
    Crawling through days with slow laborious feet,
    And I lay gazing through the leaded pane,
    Idle, and listened to the swallows' cry
    After the flitting insect swiftly caught,
    Those all-too-leisured hours as they went by,
    Stamped as their heritage upon my thought
    The memory of a square of summer sky
    Jagged by the gables of a Gothic court.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Disillusion

    I wrote the burning words to you
    That meant so much to me.
    I sent them speeding straight to you,
    To you across the sea;
    I waited with sure reckoning
    For your reply to me.

    I waited, and the counted day
    Fruitlessly came and went;
    I made excuse for the delay,
    Pitiable confident.
    I knew to-morrow's light must bring
    The words you must have sent.

    And still I stand on that dim verge
    And look across the sea;
    The waves have changed into a dirge
    Their volubility.
    And in my disillusioned heart
    Is a little grave for me.

    But still with shaded eyes I gaze
    As mournfully I sing,
    And one by one the trailing days,
    As they no message bring,
    ...

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Evening

When little lights in little ports come out,
Quivering down through water with the stars,
And all the fishing fleet of slender spars
Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;

When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled,
And underneath our single riding-light
The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white,
And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;

Then, and then only, have I thought how sweet
Old age might sink upon a windy youth,
Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth,
Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

For ***

    No eyes shall see the poems that I write
    For you; not even yours; but after long
    Forgetful years have passed on our delight
    Some hand may chance upon a dusty song

    Of those fond days when every spoken word
    Was sweet, and all the fleeting things unspoken
    Yet sweeter, and the music half unheard
    Murmured through forests as a charm unbroken.

    It is the plain and ordinary page
    Of two who loved, sole-spirited and clear.
    Will you, O stranger of another age,
    Not grant a human and compassionate tear
    To us, who each the other held so dear?
    A single tear fraternal, sadly shed,
    Since that which was so living, is so dead.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Full Moon

She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers
Someone had brought her from Ispahan,
And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,
And the coral-hafted feather fan;
But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,
And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran.

She cared not a rap for all the big planets,
For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,
And all the big planets cared nothing for her,
That small impertinent charlatan;
But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,
And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

MCMXIII

    So prodigal was I of youth,
    Forgetting I was young;
    I worshipped dead men for their strength,
    Forgetting I was strong.

    I cherished old, jejune advice;
    I thought I groped for truth;
    Those dead old languages I learned
    When I was prodigal of youth!

    Then in the sunlight stood a boy,
    Outstretching either hand,
    Palm upwards, cup-like, and between
    The fingers trickled sand.

    "Oh, why so grave" he cried to me,
    "Laugh, stern lips, laugh at last!
    Let wisdom come when wisdom may.
    The sand is running fast."

    I followed him into the sun,
    And laughed as he desired,
    And every day upon the grass
    We play till we are tired.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Mariana In The North

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn
                Where she was wont to roam.

All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,
That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,
Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled
                Out of the yellow gorse.

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,
The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,
And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last
                Is the voice of the lonely land.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Morning In Constantinople

    She has an early morning of her own,
    A blending of the mist and sea and sun
    Into an undistinguishable one,
    And Saint Sophia, from her lordly throne

    Rises above the opalescent cloud,
    A shadowy dome and soaring minaret
    Visable though the base be hidden yet
    Beneath the veiling wreaths of milky shroud,

    As some dark Turkish beauty haughtily
    Glances above the yashmak's snowy fold.
    Beyond Stamboul's long stretch, a bar of gold
    Falls from the sun across the distant sea.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

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