Poetry

And then pell-mell his harvest follows swift
Blossom and Borage, lime and balm and clover
On downs the thyme, on cliffs the scantling thrift
Everywhere the bees go racing with the hours
For every bee becomes a drunken lover
Standing upon his head to sup the flowers
The Land

V.Sackville West

Vita (Victoria Mary) Sackville-West (1892-1962) was a prolific poet and novelist – though she is probably best known for her writing on gardens and her affair with Virginia Woolf. She was born into an aristocratic family in Knole, Kent. Her grandmother was the famous Pepita, a Spanish dancer of humble descent who had formed an illicit union with Lionel Sackville-West, the 2nd Lord Sackville. She was educated privately and became a striking if slightly eccentric figure, over six feet tall. As a child she started to write poetry, writing her first ballads at the age of 11. Her first published work, the verse drama Chatterton, was printed privately in 1909 when she was seventeen, and besides further volumes of poetry she wrote thirteen full-length novels (including a detective story) as well as books on biography, and history.