From first to last poetry was part of Edith Whartons writing life.Whilerarely after early youth her primary focus it always served her as amedium for recording ... » 

From first to last poetry was part of Edith Whartons writing life.Whilerarely after early youth her primary focus it always served her as amedium for recording the most vivid impressions and emotions an intimatejournal of longings and regrets. Poetry was important to Whartonwriteseditor Louis Auchincloss because it enabled her to express the deeplyemotional side of her nature that she kept under such tight control not onlyin her life but in the ordered sweep of her fiction. In later years her poetryalso engaged with the public passions of wartime as she found herself involvedwith the plight of Allied soldiers in France. Her first models were Romanticbut in the course of her life she absorbed the influences of Symbolism andModernism and throughout her poetic career she showed a care for form even inher most private utterances as in the erotic ode Terminus never publishedin her lifetime. This volume collects the bulk of Whartons significant poetryincluding much work previously uncollected or unpublished. «