This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... INEPT What is the burthen of this gold sunshine That burns across the voidness of decay, Or stamps its splendour on the forest pine, Or lifts--a token torch--one sweet-fern spray? Why would it brand so deep? The meadows spread Untarnishable in their pomp of dew, Or frost, or clear meridian: overhead Droppeth the night; but one must creep into The brake to hide one from the harvest moon, So wide she stares. Great stars that shed no boon Flame through the orchard apples laid in heaps. Why this profusion of September fire Poured where the thistle in the tilth grows higher, Laid over the broad fields where no man reaps? NOT VINTAGE 109 NOT VINTAGE A Garden heavy with the harvest hops, Creeping in garlands, glorious as they creep, Up toward the sun, bearing their blossom-drops Through coils of leafy light--gold blooms that steep The air with thunder--fatal flowering round Of some oppressive spirit, severed quite From the quick feet of sylvan hunting-ground, From the fountains of the hills, and from thy sight, Iacchus, Reveller! Ah, would'st thou come, Even from many toils and bitter chance, From the Alcyonian Lake! 'Tis only those Who have drunk fervently of mortal woes Can strike the timbrel, can attune the dance. We have no god, and all our lives are dumb. SEPTEMBER But why is Nature at such heavy pause, And the earth slowly ceasing to revolve? Only the lapping tides abide their laws, And very softly on the sand dissolve. The fruit is gathered--not an apple drops: In little mists above the garden bed The petals of the last gold dahlia shed; The spider central 'mid his wreathed dewdrops! Oh still, oh quiet!--and no issue found; No laying up to rest of callow things, Or scale, or sheaf, or tissue of armed wings: Open the tilth, open the...

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Michael Field, the poetic identity created by Katharine Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece Edith Cooper (1862-1913), ceaselessly experimented with forms of identity and forms of literary expression. The Forms of Michael Field argues that their modes of self-creation are analogous to their poetic creations, and that exploring them in tandem is the best way to understand Michael Field’s cultural and literary importance. Michael Field deploys a different form in each volume of their lyric poetry: translations of Sappho, ekphrasis, songs, sonnets, and devotional verse. They also appropriate and revise the dramatic genres of verse tragedy and the masque. Each of these experiments in form enable Michael Field to differently address the cultural questions that beset late-Victorian women writers. Drawing on the insights of new lyric studies and new formalism, this book analyzes Michael Field’s continual quest for the aesthetic forms that best express their evolving ideas about identity and sexuality, gender and sacrifice, lyric voice and authority.

“Michael Field” was the literary pseudonym of two women, Katharine Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece Edith Cooper (1862-1913). The women were poets, playwrights, diarist, and lovers who lived and wrote together during the final decades of the nineteenth century up to World War I. Their arresting poetry has recently gained them a place in the canon, and their extensive engagement with other writers puts them at the centre of fin de siècle literary culture. This Broadview Edition offers selections from all published books of poetry by Michael Field, and a substantial section of transcriptions from largely unpublished manuscript letters and diaries that gives insight into the extraordinary life and work of the authors. A critical introduction, bibliography, and selection of contemporary reviews are also included.