| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Sonnet: “I, being born a woman and distressed” | | By Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) |
| | (1921)
I, BEING born a woman and distressed | |
| By all the needs and notions of my kind, | |
| Am urged by your propinquity to find | |
| Your person fair, and feel a certain zest | |
| To bear your body’s weight upon my breast: | 5 |
| So subtly is the fume of life designed, | |
| To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, | |
| And leave me once again undone, possessed. | |
| Think not for this, however, the poor treason | |
| Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, | 10 |
| I shall remember you with love, or season | |
| My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain: | |
| I find this frenzy insufficient reason | |
| For conversation when we meet again. | | | | |
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