Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today's Wednesday, February 24th, 2021.

Today's poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millet. She was born on February 22nd, 1892, and died on October 19th, 1950.

So Monday, the 22nd, was her birthday, and didn't want to let this week go by without reading one of her poems.

She was a wonderful poet, an American lyrical poet. She also wrote plays, and she was actually the first woman to

win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Previously on this podcast several months ago, I read a poem that

she wrote called Euclid Alone has looked on Beauty Bear, which is one of her best known poems.

And the poet Richard Wilbur, who you've heard from, you know, he's one of my very favorites.

He claimed that Edna St. Vincent Malay, quote, wrote some of the best sonnets of the century.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called The Ballad of the Harpweaver.

It's one of what is considered her among her best poems.

And I want to read it.

It's a little bit long, though, so I'm not going to really offer any comments today.

I'm going to read it, and if I have some time, I'll read it again.

I just think it's that good, that I want to go ahead and share it with you.

So here it is, The Ballad of the Harp Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Malay.

Son, said my mother when I was knee-high,

You've need of clothes to cover you and not a rag, have I?

There's nothing in the house to make a boy breeches,

nor shears to cut a cloth with, nor thread to take stitches.

There's nothing in the house but a loaf and of rye, and a harp with a woman's head nobody will buy. Then she began to cry. That was in the early fall.

When came the late fall?

Son, she said, the sight of you makes your mother's blood crawl,

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