For Ann Scott-Mancrieff
Heard this beautiful poem on BBC radio today for National Poetry Week - a Andrew Marr selection. He shares Edwin Muir's poem "To Ann Scott-Mancrieff". Muir was an Orcadian Scottish Poet who experienced a huge amount of grief in his life, losing a mother, father and two brothers at a young age. Ann Scott-Mancrieff was a friend of his, a writer, who died at the young age of 28.
Andrew Marr selected the poem with an introduction stating that it demonstrates "how we can care for people we never met."
Dear Ann
Where ever you are
since you lately learned to die
You are this unsetting star
that shines unchanged in my eye
So near, inaccessible
Absent and present so much
Since out of the world you fell
fell from hearing and touch
So near but your mortal tongue
used for immortal use
the grace of a woman young
the air of an early muse
the wealth of a chambered brow
and soaring flight of your eyes
these are no longer now
death has a princely price
you who are Anne
much more
than others are this or that*
