"Escape" by Elinor Wylie

When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.

But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.

And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,
The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.

Wylie, Elinor. "Escape." PoemHunter. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/escape-2/



Elinor Wylie (born Elinor Hoyt in 1885) grew up a socialite, but introduced herself to scandal when she eloped with Philip Simmons Hichborn. They were married from 1905-1910, when she induced yet another scandal by leaving her husband and son for a married man: Horace Wylie. The two fled to England (using the alias of Waring) where she published her first book of poetry. As WWI started, the two moved back to America and officially married in 1916. The couple soon grew apart, and Wylie met her future husband #3: William Rose Benèt. Wylie used Benèt as her literary agent and separated with her husband in 1921 and married Benèt in 1923, though she continued to write under the name of Wylie. Again, their marriage became stressed and the two parties agreed to live apart with Wylie moving to London. It is said that in 1928 she met another married man, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, and fell in love, though the two never married. She returned to America for a Christmas visit to Benèt in 1928 where she died of a stroke.

Poetry Foundation. "Elinor Wylie." Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute. 2011. Web. 19 Apr 2011. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/elinor-wylie


I believe that this poem is Wylie's way of shielding herself from the scandal that surrounded her since her first marriage. Wylie was probably bred to be a social wife, without producing anything but a child for her husband and pretty appearance for social events. Instead, Wylie fell in and out of love and produced beautiful works of poetry, but at what price? The above poem has fantastic elements, but I think that is Wylie's point. Why shouldn't she create a world of fantasy to disguise the words being said around her and her feelings towards those opinions? I doubt she wanted the public to know if she was worried that her reputation was tainted by uncommon marriages. In fact, critics (who can be found by following the above link) have said that much of her poetry is beautiful, even if it hides whom the poet is underneath. I think that this poem served as her escape from society, just as much of her poetry probably did. This poem just served as a more literal version of that escape from whatever she had to deal with.