Edna St. Vincent Millay / Edward Steichen | Night is my sister / La notte è mia sorella

Edward Steichen (American🎨 photographer, painter, and curator, 1879-1973)| Greta Garbo

Night is my sister, and how deep in love,

How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,

There to be fretted by the drag and shove

At the tide's edge, I lie - these things and more:

Whose arm alone between me and the sand,

Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,

Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,

She could advise you, should you care to hear.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American🎨 lyrical poet and playwright.

She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award🎨 for poetry🎨, and was also known for her feminist activism.

Small chance, however, in a storm so black,

A man will leave his friendly fire and snug

For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back

To drip and scatter shells upon the rug.

No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,

Watches beside me in this windy place.

Edward Steichen | In Memoriam, 1904

La notte è mia sorella, io nel profondo

dell’amore annegata, giaccio a riva,

acque e alghe a fior d’onda mi lambiscono,

mi ferirà la draga, e c’è di più:

lei, solo braccio teso dalla sabbia,

unica voce il cui respiro sento

a sgelarmi le nari, ad aprirmi la mano,

lei potrebbe avvisarti, se tu udissi.

Ma di certo è impensabile che un uomo

in sì dura tempesta lasci il quieto

focolare e s’imbarchi al salvataggio

di un’annegata per portarla a casa,

sgocciolante conchiglie sul tappeto.

Buia è la notte, e per me piange il vento.

Edward Steichen | Marlene Dietrich, 1931

Edward Steichen | Anna May Wong, 1930 | MoMa