Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Edith Wharton, an American novelist, short storywriter, playwright, and of course, poet, who lived from 1862 to 1937.

In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, which she won for her

beloved novel, The Age of Innocence, one of the most highly regarded novels of the 20th century.

Today, though, I'm going to read a poem called an autumn sunset. I'll read it and then offer some

thoughts with some help from a great resource, and then I'll read it one more time. Here it is.

One.

Leaguered in fire, the wild black promontories of the coast extend their savage silhouettes.

The sun in universal carnage sets, and halting higher, the motionless storm clouds mask their sullen threats, like an advancing mob and sword points penned

that balked yet stands at bay. Mid-Zenith hangs the fascinated day in wind-lustrated hollows

crystalline, a wan valky whose wide pinions shine across the insanguine ruins of the fray,

and in her hand swings high or head above

the waste of war, the silver torchlight of the evening star, wherewith to search the faces of the

dead.

2.

Lagooned in gold, seem not those jetty promontories, rather the outposts of some ancient land forlorn,

uncomforted of mourn, where old oblivions gather, the melancholy, unconsoling fold of all things

that go utterly to death and mix no more, no more with life's perpetually awakening breath.

Shall time not ferry me to such a shore

over such sailless seas to walk with hope

slain importunities and miserable marriage?

Nay, shall not all things be there forgot,

...