In spite of some tremors, I think I shall go on with this diary for the present. I sometimes think that I have worked through the layer of style which suited it — suited the comfortable bright hour, after tea; and the thing I’ve reached now is less pliable. Never mind; I fancy old Virginia, putting on her spectacles to read of March 1920, will decidedly wish me to continue. Greetings! my dear ghost; and take heed that I don’t think 50 a very great age. Several good books can be written still; and here’s the bricks for a fine one.

– Excerpt from the diary of Virginia Woolf

The Diary | Dominick Argento

from From the Diary of Virginia Woolf

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something . . . so

elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful

that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep

old desk . . . in which one flings a mass of odds and ends

without looking them through. I should like to come back, after

a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself

and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously

do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life.

“Only Until This Cigarette is Ended” | Edna St. Vincent Millay

Only until this cigarette is ended,

A little moment at the end of all,

While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,

And in the firelight to a lance extended,

Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,

The broken shadow dances on the wall,

I will permit my memory to recall

The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.

And then adieu,—farewell!—the dream is done.

Yours is a face of which I can forget

The color and the features, every one,

The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;

But in your day this moment is the sun

Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

from Beauty Intolerable | Sheila Silver

I, Being Born a Woman (Millay)

I, being born a woman and distressed

By all the needs and notions of my kind,

Am urged by your propinquity to find

Your person fair, and feel a certain zest

To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:

So subtly is the fume of life designed,

To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,

And leave me once again undone, possessed.

Think not for this, however, the poor treason

Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,

I shall remember you with love, or season

My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:

I find this frenzy insufficient reason

For conversation when we meet again.

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts (Millay)

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,

And drag me at your chariot till I die, —

Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts! —

Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie

Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,

Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,

Who still am free, unto no querulous care

A fool, and in no temple, worshiper!

I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,

Lifted my face into its puny rain,

Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire

As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!

(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,

Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)

“Dreaming of Lesbos” | Tatiana de la Tierra

I can enter the morning with traces of an eternal dream: to live

on a planet of women. we sing in the fertile forest, caress on

lavender hills, bathe beneath cascades of clear waters. and just

like that, nude and wet, we mount each other’s bodies. our

desire is a whale that searches for calm in the depth of the sea.

I smell sex in my hair when I awaken.

the dream perfumes all of my days. I go to the post office and

look for stamps with etchings of flowers and fruits so that I can

send letters to the women who loved me in my sleep.

we are in a world that is not ours. what do we do with the

dreams that touch our consciousness in the nude each night?

our planet of women is nothing more than a dream. who knows

how many of us bathe in the woods or which ones of us have

wings that let us fly with our flesh? it’s not for anyone to know.

fortunately, we always dream paradise, we make it ours. there,

we find each other and live in our collective memory.

and so, I smell sex in my hair when I awaken.

“The Courage that my mother had” | Millay

The courage that my mother had

Went with her, and is with her still:

Rock from New England quarried;

Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore

She left behind for me to wear;

I have no thing I treasure more:

Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me

The thing she took into the grave!—

That courage like a rock, which she

Has no more need of, and I have.

Farther from the Heart (Bowles) | Eve Beglarian

Oh, I’m sad for never knowing courage,

And I’m sad for the stilling of fear.

Closer to the sun now and farther from the heart.

I think that my end must be near.

I linger too long at a picnic,

’cause a picnic’s gayer than me.

And I hold to the edge of the table,

’cause the table’s stronger than me,

And I lean on anyone’s shoulder

because anyone’s warmer than me.

Oh, I’m sad for never knowing courage,

And I’m sad for the stilling of fear.

Closer to the sun now and farther from the heart.

I think my end must be near.

“When I Say ‘I AM’” | Tatiana de la Tierra

(Spanish)

cuando digo que soy lesbiana me adelanto a los que, al referirse a mí, dicen: “es”. al ser lo que que soy, también sigo siendo todo lo que soy: la que desayuna con toronjas, la que no se peina nunca, la que baila vallenatos y la que sigue siendo lo que es.

la que “es” pero no dice “soy” nada más puede ser lo que es cuando está rodeada de otras que posiblemente tampoco dicen lo que son salvo cuando están entre ellas mismas.

la que “es” pero no dice “soy” también puede “ser” lo que es cuando está sola, cuando no hay ojos para detallarla y declararla.

claro que no importa si las que son no dicen “soy” porque igual casi siempre se sabe que son.

(English)

when I say that I am a lesbian I get ahead of those who refer to me by saying: she is. when I am what I am, I continue to be everything that I am: the one who eats grapefruits for breakfast, who never brushes her hair, who dances vallenatos, and who continues to be what she is.

the one who is but does not say “I AM” can only be what she is when surrounded by others who also don’t say that they are unless they are with each other.

the one who is and does not say “I AM” can also be what she is by herself when there are no eyes around to scrutinize and label her.

still, it matters not that those who are do not say “I AM” because in any case everyone else almost always knows that they are.

Fancy | Dominick Argento

from From the Diary of Virginia Woolf

Why not invent a new kind of play; as for instance:

Woman thinks:

He does.

Organ plays.

She writes.

They say:

She sings.

Night speaks.

They miss.

The Human Mind (Stein) | Vivian Fine

Does he or she does she or he

Know what the human mind is.

And so all the old chapters end tears end.

But all this has nothing to do with the human mind

the use of the human mind and tears.

It has been said said by very many

said by Jules Verne he weeps

that shows he is a man.

But a dog can have tears in his eyes

yes he can have tears in his eyes

when he has been disillusioned.

A dog when he begged always got what he asked for.

“Recuerdo” | Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry —

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable —

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;

And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry —

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;

And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,

And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

Rome | Dominick Argento

from From the Diary of Virginia Woolf

Rome: tea. Tea in café. Ladies in bright coats and white hats.

Music. Look out and see people like movies . . . Ices.

Old man who haunts the Greco . . . Fierce large jowled old

ladies . . . talking about Monaco. Talleyrand. Some very

poor black wispy women. The effect of dowdiness produced

by wispy hair. Sunday café . . . Very cold. The Prime Minister's

letter offering to recommend me for The Companion of Honour. No.

Excerpt from The Autobiography of Alice Toklas | Gertrude Stein

We had been resting and looking at everybody and it was indeed the vie de Bohème just as one had seen it in the opera and they were very wonderful to look at. Just then somebody behind us put a hand on our shoulders and burst out laughing. It was Gertrude Stein. You have seated yourselves admirably, she said. But why, we asked. Because right here in front of you is the whole story. We looked but we saw nothing except two big pictures that looked quite alike but not altogether alike. One is a Braque and one is a Derain, explained Gertrude Stein. They were strange pictures of strangely formed rather wooden blocked figures, one if I remember rightly a sort of man and women, the other three women. Well, she said, still laughing. We were puzzled, we had seen so much strangeness we did not know why these two were any stranger. She leaned over us and said solemnly, do you want to take French lessons. We hesitated, why yes we could take French lessons. Well Fernande will give you French lessons, go and find her and tell her how absolutely you are pining to take French lessons. But why should she give us French lessons, we asked. Because, well because she and Picasso have decided to separate forever. I suppose it has happened before but not since I have known them. You know Pablo says if you love a woman you give her money. Well now it is when you want to leave a woman you have to wait until you have enough money to give her. She wants to install herself in a room by herself and give French lessons, so that is how you come in. Well what has that to do with these two pictures, asked my ever-curious friend. Nothing, said Gertrude Stein, going off with a great shout of laughter.

An Ancient Gesture (Millay) | Sheila Silver

from Beauty Intolerable

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:

Penelope did this too, and more than once.

You can't keep weaving all day and undoing it all through the night;

Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;

And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,

And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.

Suddenly you burst into tears;

There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:

This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,

In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;

Ulysses did this too.

But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied

To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.

He learned it from Penelope…

Penelope, who really cried.

Last Entry | Dominick Argento

from From the Diary of Virginia Woolf

No: I intend no introspection. I mark Henry James' sentence:

Observe perpetually. Observe the oncome of age. Observe greed.

Observe my own despondency. By that means it becomes

serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending this

time to the best advantage. I will go down with my colours

flying . . . Occupation is essential. And now with some pleasure

I find that it's seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and

sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain

hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.

“First Fig” | Millay

“My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!”

Well Welcome (Stein) | Richard Hundley

Why am I if I am uncertain reasons may inclose.

Remain remain propose repose chose.

I call carelessly that the door is open

Which if they may refuse to open

No one can rush to close.

Let them be mine therefore.

Everybody knows that I chose.

Therefore if therefore before I close

I will therefore offer therefore I offer this.

Which if I refuse to miss may be miss is mine.

I will be well welcome when I come.

Because I am coming.

Certainly I come having come.

These stanzas are done.