Fatal Interview Sonnet XI - "Not In A Silver Casket"

Sonnet XI

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you.
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion and the legend plain-
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have! - And these are all for you."

(From "Fatal Interview" 1931)

I was reminded of this poem by a comment on "No Lack of Counsel," a poem I posted in March. These two sonnets are similar, as the commenter noted, in their depiction of a woman who is honest about her intentions and emotions, even though she knows that her honesty puts her at a disadvantage in her attempts to charm the man she loves.

Millay was indeed intoxicated with her attraction to Dillon, and this poem strikes me as remarkable in its dedication to simple beauty in the midst of such a turbulent affair. It almost sounds as if it was written for Boissevain, and perhaps it was, but it appears in the middle of a book of sonnets written for Dillon.

She begins by saying what she is not doing, and it may help to know that red corundum is ruby and blue is sapphire. Her love is not locked away as others might, or dependent on a ring to keep a vow. She is giving her love freely, though she knows that is risky, as she writes in "No Lack of Counsel." I admire her ability to love so freely. She had suffered many losses and heartbreaks, as her earlier poetry makes clear, and yet she loved without reservation still. It is a lesson and an inspiration and I'm so grateful that such a soulful person was also such a talented poet.

Now By The Path I Climbed

Now by the path I climbed, I journey back.
The oaks have grown; I have been long away.
Talking with me your memory and your lack
I now descend into a milder day;
Stripped of your love, unburdened of my hope,
Descend the path I mounted from the plain;
Yet steeper than I fancied seems the slope
And stonier, now that I go down again.
Warm falls the dusk; the clanking of a bell
Faintly ascends upon this heavier air;
I do recall those grassy pastures well:
In early spring they drove the cattle there.
And close at hand should be a shelter, too,
From which the mountain peaks are not in view.

(From Fatal Interview)

Fatal Interview is an extensive series of sonnets Millay wrote about her turbulent affair with George Dillon. This sonnet is found in the second half of the collection, so it makes sense that here is speaking about the end of the passionate relationship she had with Dillon. The metaphor of descending from a hill in the springtime is a descriptive one, and I love the alteration between metaphor and reality. This is especially apparent in the lines "Talking with me your memory and your lack/I now descend into a milder day" where in the first line she refers to the loss of her lover and in the second casts the scene of walking down a mountain into milder weather. Although she undoubtedly loved Dillon, he was not the love of her life, and in fact her affair with him occurred during her marriage to the man she loved most, Eugen Jan Boissevain.

I plan on sharing many more sonnets from this Fatal Interview, as there are some of Millay's most descriptive and passionate work, but I always find it interesting to keep in mind that the person who inspired these poems was but a turbulent season in a life full of many loves.