Millay's Witch-Wife.

I like poetry. I really do. And from time to time I like to examine a poem and interact with it. Unravel it a bit. This is what I will be doing here in this blog this evening. I know that poetry may not interest every reader out there, and so I will warn you (like I am doing right now)... whenever I am going to “wax poetic” on ye!
Millay (1892-1950) is deservedly one of America’s best-loved poets. Thomas Hardy (another favorite poet of mine) once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Tonight I want to look at one of her poems, entitled Witch-Wife.
If you have any favorite poems you would like me to dissect, [and you are NOT a high-school student who wants me to do an English assignment for you], submit the name of the poem here on the blog and perhaps I will do a Cipriano-style extremely informal study of it. Then we can [as Linda Richmond would say] “tawk amongst awselves!”
For now, flip the channel you Poetry-Hater, while ye others, sit back and read my Study On The Importance of Inflection, Using Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Witch-Wife As A Case In Point.

Witch-Wife

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
________

The first thing I must say about this poem is that to me, it is both beautiful and eerie. One (among many) of the things that strikes me about it is that it is written by a woman. “She loves me all that she can”.... written by a woman. It is immediately fascinating.
Millay submitted Witch-Wife to Mitchell Kennerley and he published it, along with two of her others, in The Forum. According to biographer Nancy Milford, when Kennerley sent Edna the cheque for her work, he included a letter, stating that he hoped she would let him publish her first book of poems and he went on to suggest that the dust jacket should contain the (now famous) photograph of her standing among the magnolia blossoms.
Milford says that Witch-Wife is “clearly something of a self-portrait.” (p.135 of Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay).
A self-portrait. This makes the poem even more interesting to me, as a reader.

Many, or perhaps ALL of the lines elude my interpretation. Rather, they are interpreted, but whether rightly or no, I cannot say. All of them leave an impression upon me, but none of them jump up and declare themselves plainly. This is perhaps the hallmark of great poetry.
When I first see the line She is neither pink nor pale, I hearken back to the title I have just read, the image of witchery having been placed there, and I read this line as saying she is neither alive nor dead. She neither is, nor hath been? Neither having the tinge of health, nor the pallor of a cadaver?
Whatever else we may say, it is a strange combination that we find in the title, witchery and matrimony. It is not Witch-Woman... but Witch-Wife.
Married to what, to whom? What is the significance of this specific designation?
What manner of realm is an entity IN, if they are neither alive nor dead? Whatever answer one gives, one is forced to admit to something mysterious... unfindable.
And the next line confirms it... she is elusive. She will never be posessed. And she never will be all mine. This being the one line in the poem that will be repeated later, and not only later, but in conclusion, we should pay attention to it as probably having an over-arching thematic value.
The next two lines are a mystery to me:
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
However, is it possible that she is saying that the Witch-Wife has learned all that she knows about the practical/concrete side of life (her hands) and the romantic/imaginary side of life (her mouth) through that which is not experiential? (The fairy-tale / the valentine).
Is the emphasis moreso upon what she does (hands) and says (mouth) and again, both of these things having been learned (experienced) in the realm of the imaginary and/or romantic?
She kisses a valentine instead of the mouth of the one who sent it to her?
She is a wife, but what she has learned of love comes not from her marital situation? Not from the one to whom she is married? Therefore she feels as though she is neither dead or alive? Mysterious, to say the least.
It begins to be apparent to me that even if the poem is a self-portrait, we need to forget all about the poet if we are to get what the poet is saying.
The meaning we ascribe to the poem, even in this first stanza changes dramatically if we believe that Millay is the Witch-Wife or that Millay is speaking about the Witch-Wife. In either case, the line that is most difficult to reconcile is the recurring one, And she never will be all mine.

The next lines are quite vague to me, interpretively speaking:
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!
So much so, in fact, that I must leave them be, for now. The next two are full of wonder:
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
The words “her voice” revive this character.... make her alive. In everything else described thus far, yes, we could be talking of some non-existent being, something that once existed, and is no more. But the voice (in the present tense) is a string of coloured beads.
She lives. I suppose someone could also say “WERE she to speak.... her voice WOULD BE.....” But no, the more obvious sense is that she lives. There is such a thing as her.
It is as though we are brought up for a breath of air, or a glimpse... tangibility... but then the next line again plunges us into a mystery... for while “steps leading into the sea” can sound quite wonderful, they (the steps) can also lead one only into a state of dangerous submersion.
Who is it that wants to walk into the sea? You could drown.
If you listen to her, you will be over your head. Her beauty (or more specifically, her wisdom, because what is being metaphorically alluded to in the imagery of “steps” is her “voice” or her words) will so surround you that you will be consumed. Such is her magic.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
This is the first reference to this character being dependent upon anyone else. Dependent is the wrong word perhaps... but the elusive nature is for a moment lifted, and the suggestion that the Witch-Wife can relegate herself to another is given, only to be quickly whisked away again in the next (and final) lines.
It is these last two lines that fascinate me more than any others in the poem, and which inspired me to take a closer look at the complete thing. The thing that fascinates me is the variation in meaning that inflection gives to these lines. It would be so instructive to hear the poet herself recite these lines. For therein lies so very much of the overall mystery of the poem. How would Edna St. Vincent Millay enunciate these lines?
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
How many ways can this be read? I will name only two.
The meaning changes, and radically so, with the inflection of certain words.
In the first line, let us read it as follows, the underlined word receiving the emphasis.... "But she was not made for any man."
In this reading the Witch-Wife and all that she entails (all that she is).... all of her womanly qualities (we might say, and I hope it is not a wrong way of saying it, her femininity, or her not-maleness) has very little to do with her relationship to any man.
It would be what it is, were there no man at all. It is significant, in my opinion, that here at the end, is the first (and only) reference to “man.”
Whether Millay is the Witch-Wife or whether she is speaking about the Witch-Wife, in either case, given this emphasis on the word “made” she is saying that the Witch-Wife is who she is without reference to man. She may willingly love, and even defer to man (as in the two preceding lines), but she is not made for man. And her realization of this is what makes her the Witch-Wife.

Now, let us read the line another way. "But she was not made for any man."
Now we are talking about the man. The man who is worthy of the Witch-Wife. Although this is a less likely reading of the line (in my opinion) still I think it is valid to consider its possibility.
Let’s face it. If the line is read in the first sense, (emphasis on made) then it is subtly saying that there is no man worthy of the Witch-Wife. It descends (or ascends?) very nearly into what might be considered thereafter as a Feminist poem. i.e., the subtext is that there is no man worthy of the Witch-Wife.

But this second type of reading could possibly emphasize the following corrolary idea:
The Witch-Wife is a special sort of woman.
There are men that are special in a similar sense.
The Witch-Wife was made for such a man.

In other words, it is not that the Witch-Wife cannot be with any man, but that she cannot be with any man! She herself is not any woman! She is the Witch-Wife.

I favor the first reading, the emphasis on the word “made” but conclude that the poem is not some sort of feminist statement. It is simply saying that the Witch-Wife does not find her identity (is not validated) by her comparison with or relationship to... any man!
And this is why the last line is what it is!
And she never will be all mine.
Why will she never be someone else’s possession?
Because she is her own possession, and she lives her life in an awareness of that fact.
This does not diminish her relationship with “a man” but in fact enhances it, if she chooses to be involved in such a relationship. But whether she does or not... she is still the Witch-Wife!
She realizes (and profoundly so) her relation TO the male of her species (fairy-tale / valentine) regardless of any such relationship actually existing, or having had existed in the past.
[I think of Emily Dickinson as being a Witch-Wife].
If it DOES exist (a relationship) she will love all that she can, and she will know (learn?) how to give as well as receive from the relationship, but all the while, she will never surrender selfhood or a certain aspect of autonomy. She will never become someone else. Never abdicate.

In conclusion, there are at least two ways to read the last line also.... with an emphasis on either the word “never” or “be” (these being the most likely readings). Again, more than just subtle nuance is affected, with inflection. Entire meanings change. In one... it is a time factor... “never,” in the other (“be”) the essence of the Witch-Wife is the variant.
The way I personally favor reading these lines is as follows:
"But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine."

And to anyone that would say that the matter of inflection is irrelevant I would say this:
Try reading those two final lines in the poem with no inflection whatsoever. You will quickly find that it is virtually impossible. It is a prime example of the fact that we bring so much of who we are to everything we read, and never moreso than to poetry.