FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
Poet and novelist Anna de Noailles (1876 – 30 1933) was of Greco-Romanian origins, but was born in Paris where she lived all her life. She wrote three novels, an autobiography, and nine collections of poetry. In 1897 she had married Mathieu Fernand Frédéric Pascal de Noailles (1873–1942), the fourth son of the 7th Duke de Noailles.
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
The couple soon became the toast of Parisian high society.
De Noailles had friendly relations with the intellectual, literary and artistic elite of the day. So popular that various notable artists painted her portrait, including Antonio de la Gandara, Kees van Dongen, Jacques Émile Blanche, and the British portrait painter Philip de Laszlo. In 1906 her image was sculpted by Auguste Rodin; the clay model can be seen today in the Musée Rodin in Paris, and the finished marble bust is on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum.
For her works de Noailles was the first woman to become a Commander of the Legion of Honor. In her poetry she actively engaged with her French literary heritage while finding a source of inspiration in Greek paganism and in Nietzsche’s radical thought, de Noailles constructed an original poetic world view. Her work is best described as Dionysian–ecstatic, sensual, erotic, playful, sometimes violent, and always marked by a tragic undercurrent which becomes more apparent in her later poetry (source). She died in 1933 in Paris, aged 56, and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Comtesse de Noailles, 1922 via
Anna de Noailles, 1922 via
Anna de Noailles wearing her trademark bouffant coiffure augmented by a wall of bangs and a 1900s dress with complex sleeves, 1904 via
Portrait of Anna de Noailles, 1918 via
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
FROM THE BYGONE 
