She and her two younger brothers — Osbert and Sacheverell who both also experienced literary success — experienced a childhood of mistreatment and neglect by their parents. In 1918 she met and became friends with the poet and war hero Siegfried Sassoon. According to her biographer Richard Greene she fell in love with Sassoon, even though she knew that he was a homosexual. Similarly, she later fell in love with the gay Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, whom she helped both financially and through her influence . Edith Sitwell never did marry, but lived for many years in the company of her former governess Helen Rootham. Her flat became a meeting place for writers, several of whom she helped to become established.
In the 21st century Dame Edith Sitwell is best known for her poem “Still Falls the Rain” — a poem about the Blitz of London during WWII.
Dirge for the New Sunrise
Fifteen minutes past eight o’clock, on the
morning of Monday the 6th of August, 1945
Bound to my heart as Ixion to the wheel,
Nailed to my heart as the Thief upon the Cross
I hang between our Christ and the gap where the world was lost
And watch the phantom Sun in Famine Street
— The ghost of the heart of Man…red Cain,
And the more murderous brain
Of Man, still redder Nero that conceived the death
Of his mother Earth, and tore
Her womb, to know the place where he was conceived.
But no eyes grieved —
For none were left for tears:
They were blinded as the years
Since Christ was born. Mother or Murderer, you have given
or taken life —
Now all is one!
There was a morning when the holy Light
Was young…The beautiful First Creature came
To our water-springs, and thought us without blame.
Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the light —
The marrow in the bone
We dreamed was safe…the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree
Were springs of the Deity.
But I saw the little Ant-men as they ran
Carrying the world’s weight of the world’s filth
And the filth in the heart of Man —
Compressed till those lusts and greeds had a greater heat than
that of the Sun.
And the ray from that heat came soundless, shook the sky
As if in search for food, and squeezed the stems
Of all that grows on the earth till they were dry.
The eyes that saw, the lips that kissed, are gone
— Or black as thunder lie and grin at the murdered Sun.
The living blind and seeing dead together lie
As if in love…There was no more hating then —
And no more love: Gone is the heart of Man.
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Edith Sitwell: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
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