Orchard and Vineyard (1921) is a poetry collection by Vita Sackville-West. While she is most widely recognized as the lover of English novelist Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West was a popular and gifted poet, playwright, and novelist in her own right. A prominent lesbian and bohemian figure, Sackville-West was also the daughter of an English Baron, granting her a unique and often divided perspective on life in the twentieth century. In "Mariana in the North," Sackville-West tells the story of a woman whose best days lie behind her, whose "beautiful lovers have passed," leaving only "the voice of the lonely land": "All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, / Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home / No longer know her step…" Mournful and romantic, Sackville-West’s verse explores such matters of the human heart as beauty, aging, and loss. Elsewhere, she depicts a scene of broken trust, in which a woman discovers that two acquaintances thought to be enemies have in fact been talking behind her back: "she came / Into the room, and heard their speech / Of tragic meshes knotted with her name…" Known for her tumultuous, heated affairs with men and women alike, Sackville-West is an artist whose works so often mirror her life. This edition of Vita Sackville-West’s Orchard and Vineyard is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
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