I, being born a woman and distressed

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:
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,
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.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) , "Sonnet VIII", from The Harp-Weaver and other poems, in Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree, published 1923

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Robert Manno (1944-) , "I, being born a woman and distressed", published 1975 [soprano, piano], from Portrait of Millay, no. 1.

Date added to the website: 2005-06-08.

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