The Milly Jourdain Archive

Sunday, November 15, 2009

First published on July 3, 2009

Time, I think, for another Milly Jourdain poem. I'm beginning to have some thoughts of approaching a publisher about reprinting Milly's work in book form. But who knows if I'll actually bring myself to take that leap.

Restriction

Milly Jourdain

There is a finer freshness in the air
When winter days are lengthening and mild,
And notes of birds are still most pure and rare.

The yellow sun is dying in a haze
Of burning light; making the buildings blue,
And through a window by a street I gaze.

I stand no more beneath an open sky.
My life is cramped and hedged around, I see
Its narrowness, and hear the passers-by.

Yet as the window-panes grow dark and blurred,
O give me still a certainty of faith,
To know men's lives are not unseen, unheard.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Milly Jourdain

Milly Jourdain (1872-1926), who wrote under the pseudonym "Joan Arden," was the author of two books: A Childhood, which was a semi-fictional memoir, and Unfulfilment, a collection of poetry published in 1924 by Basil Blackwell. I first came across Milly’s poems as I was reading Hilary Spurling’s 1984 biography of Ivy Compton-Burnett, whose longtime companion, Margaret Jourdain, was Milly’s older sister. In addition to Margaret, an expert on furniture and the decorative arts, there were other fairly well known Jourdains in this large family: Philip, a mathematician and philosopher; Frank, a pioneering ornithologist; and Eleanor, who with a friend wrote a peculiar book in which they claimed to have seen the ghost of Marie Antoinette at Versailles.

Milly was the baby of the family and, like Philip, suffered from a hereditary disease known as Friedrich's ataxia, a rapidly advancing form of multiple sclerosis. Milly lived much of her life in isolation and great pain and died at the age of forty-four.

All biographical information about Milly Jourdain has been gleaned from Hilary Spurling's excellent biography of Ivy Compton-Burnett. As of now, I have been able to find no other source of information. But I am not a professional researcher, merely a regular writer and reader, so more information must certainly exist, somewhere.

A note: Milly Jourdain's poems are now in the public domain and are therefore legal to reprint. My commentary is not. I'm delighted to disseminate Milly's work, but please be kind about acknowledging your source, as I, in turn, have tried my best to do for Hilary Spurling.