Tim, Wyatt's another poet who was long dead by the time he was my age. "Sins in a nett I seeeke to holde the wynde" works not only as a commentary on the difficulty of composing poetry, but also on the trouble of writing it down. Wyatt himself probably wasn't aware of how much the English language was in flux in the sixteenth century -- that's a lot easier to see in hindsight -- but he certainly still thought of poetry as primarily sound, as good poets and readers still do, of course, and yet knew that publication, that is, edited and printed distribution, was the coming thing. I can't help thinking he recognized the difficulty of getting marks on paper to represent sound, "the wynde."
Kate, although I'm not lovelorn at the moment, I have had a recent loss and am just returned from a long morning ramble on muddy paths along the Nisqually River delta (just north of Olympia, Washington), and I hereby proclaim Millay's sonnet as more than a fine bit of craft: it's true. I don't suppose one needs to be a connisseur of overcast skies and pastel landscapes to appreciate her work here, but it helps.
Richard
[This message has been edited by Richard Wakefield (edited January 30, 2001).]
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