On this last day of March, the Friday Poem is ‘To Inez Milholland’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay; reminding us to “to take up the song; forget the epitaph”.
In 1987 Congress designated March as Women’s History Month. Thirty years later, the month has not been a good one for women, with one bright exception. On March 23 the State of Nevada ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, thirty-five years after the 1982 deadline set by Congress.
March is also the time of year that hundreds of U.S. school children visit Washington D.C. and traverse the Capitol rotunda. For many it’s their first encounter with the history of the women’s suffrage movement, as they pass the portrait monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Missing from the statue is Inez Milholland Boissevain. “A rare woman, she earned a Law degree at NYU and promptly became involved with the labor strikes of the Women’s Garment Workers and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory struggle. Throughout her life, Inez worked and fought for the underrepresented and the oppressed.”
In 1916, Inez was on a cross country campaign in support of a federal suffrage amendment when she collapsed and died while delivering a speech in Los Angeles. Her last public words, “Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?”
On Sunday, November 18, 1923 a ceremony was held in the Capitol to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the women’s rights movement. Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay Boissevain (yes, she married Inez’ widower) was part of the group of 200 women who participated in the event. The day before they had presented proposed new legislation, written by Alice Paul to the president – The Equal Rights Amendment.
“The “poem” that Edna read is the sonnet “The Pioneer,” which encouraged women to continue to fight for equal rights. It is unclear if Edna wrote the lines about Anthony, Stanton, and Mott (the pioneers in the marble statue) or about Inez — or about all of them. However, by 1928, Edna had retitled the sonnet “To Inez Milholland.”
To Inez Milholland
Upon this marble bust that is not I
Lay the round, formal wreath that is not fame;
But in the forum of my silenced cry
Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.
I, that was proud and valiant, am no more; —
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.
Only my standard on a taken hill
Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust
And make immortal my adventurous will.
Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1923
Three additional links of interest @the end of Womens History Month
‘A Trove on the Women’s Suffrage Struggle, Found in an Old Box’ The New York Times, March 29, 2017
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