Considering again the poet and writer May Sarton, to whom I made reference yesterday, it is quite remarkable how precocious she was at such a young age. I discovered some poems that she had published in the December 1930 edition of  Poetry A Magazine of Verse and found myself more than mildly astonished at her dexterity. If I had written the following poem at age 18, then I would not be typing this dross now. How to be so articulate and wise and yet so young!

    First Love

This is the first soft snow

That tiptoes up to your door

As you sit by the fire and sew,

That sifts through a crack in the floor

And covers your hair with hoar.

This is the stiffening wound

Burning the heart of a deer

Chased by a moon-white hound.

This is the hunt and the queer

Sick beating of feet that fear.

This is the crisp despair

Lying close to the marrow -

Fallen out of the air

Like frost on a narrow

Bone of a shot sparrow.

This is the love that will seize

Savagely on your mind

And do whatever he please;

This is the despair, and a snow-blind

Hound you will never bind.