Edith Sitwell's Heart and Mind

Edith Sitwell's poetry is filled with her own interpretations of experience. Concepts of time, consciousness and love are constant throughout her poems; also, as a result of her unhappy childhood, her work is known for being ambitious and experimental. She wrote war poetry, gaining initial fame through her work, "Still falls the rain". Many of her recurring themes are seen in her poem, Heart and Mind - through the use of vivid description, metaphors and comparisons, we are given insight between the endless feud of the heart and mind, presented through countless comparisons, such as the moon and the sun, and a lion and his lioness.

The first stanza opens with a powerful conversation between the lion and the lioness. He reminds her to remember their love, even after death, as seen in the simile: "No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun". The use of "no more" beside a comparison as loaded as "the heat of the Sun", signifies a time in which the lioness will be no longer as alive and as vibrant as in youth, and that is the result of old age. He wants her to remember the things that made her so powerful ("remember still the flowering... bright paws.") Such as things like the vigor of blood and bone, and the fluidity of her muscles. The simile, "the rippling of bright muscles like a sea" can allude to the sheer power of the sea when in motion, just like the lioness when hunting; "remember the rose prickles of bright paws" presents the reader with a contrasting description, because while roses are a show of innocence and purity, the idea of paws and the power that these paws contain, are quite the opposite. The concluding line of the first stanza - "though we shall... bone are one"- sets the stage for the rest of the poem, showing the similarity of both the heart to the Sun - passionate, and ablaze, - and the moon to the bone - pensive and cold - as well as the fact that they are polar opposites, and as long as they remain opposites, the lion and his lioness will never be able to be together. This shows the concept of Love present in Liz's work.

Through repetition, the second stanza opens with a "said", signifying conversation. Here, the focus is on a skeleton lying on the sands of time, as a result of age and of time itself. He speaks of a "great gold planet", and through comparison, we are able to see the true greatness of said planet, as he says it is "more powerful than the tawny body of a lion", making the lion pale in comparison, despite the fact that the lions were depicted so powerfully in the first stanza. The skeleton relates himself to both Hercules and Samson, Greek/bible heroes who were slayers of lions but were unable to defeat time, and he makes mention of the sea, and its strength - "strong as the pillars of the sea"-, alluding to the first stanza His downfall was similar to the likes of the tawny lion, being consumed by the "flames of heart", which could mean love or lustful desires - here the mind is presented as a "foolish wind", just fueling the flames of desire, despite the fact that the mind and heart are usually placed apart.

The last stanza has the same repetitive beginning, "said" but this time, we receive the perspective of the Sun and moon themselves, after all the constant references in the span of the poem. "When you are... in a dark wood" shows the sign of old age or death, where the moon is reduced to a lonely, shriveling crone, implying a later time, in which there will be nobody in the dark sky with her, not the stars of galaxies, just her in solitude; and the sun, dead in the darkness. They are both placed in opposite environments to add a haunting effect. The sun reminds his star-crossed lover of one thing: that even if time ends, the two fires, one of the heart and of the mind, will never burn as one, meaning that there will never be a time where they agree, or assure a balance - "that never til... mind be one."

With five stanzas of irregular lines and no rhyming scheme, the readers are invited into a dramatic conversation between a Lion and his Lioness, a skeleton and the Sun and the Moon. We see into their youth, love that can never be and death and decay, all through comparisons, contrasting images and vibrant usage of colours.