Marguerite Wilkinson
Reading edition
Marguerite Ogden Bigelow was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 15, 1883. She attended Northwestern University and married James G. Wilkinson in 1909.
In Vivid Gardens (1911) is a mixture of original moods and derivative manners. The later Bluestone (1920) is a much riper collection; a book of lyrics in which the author has made many experiments in the combination of rhythmical tunes and verbal music.
Mrs. Wilkinson is also the author of New Voices (1919), a series of essays on contemporary verse, reinforced with liberal quotations from both English and American poets.
BEFORE DAWN IN THE WOODS
Upon our eyelids, dear, the dew will lie,
And on the roughened meshes of our hair,
While little feet make bold to scurry by
And half-notes shrilly cut the quickened air.
Our clean, hard bodies, on the clean, hard ground
Will vaguely feel that they are full of power,
And they will stir, and stretch, and look around,
Loving the early, chill, half-lighted hour.
281Loving the voices in the shadowed trees,
Loving the feet that stir the blossoming grass—
Oh, always we have known such things as these,
And knowing, can we love and let them pass?