Edna St. Vincent Millay
Bio
Renascence
Renascence
Afternoon on a Hill
Second April
Exiled
Low-Tide
Wild Swans
Journey
Eel-Grass
A Few Figs from Thistles
The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge
The Harp-Weaver
The Concert
The Buck in the Snow
West Country Song
To a Young Girl
Huntsman, What Quarry?
Truce for a Moment
Inert Perfection
Underground System
Make Bright the Arrows
As sharp as in my childhood, still
Mine the Harvest
An Ancient Gesture
The Strawberry Shrub
Small hands, Relinquish all
Tristan
Intense and terrible, I think, must be the loneliness
Sonnets
Then cautiously she pushed the cellar door
She had a horror he would die at night
from
Renascence
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs
Time does not bring relief
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring
Not in this chamber only at my birth
If I should learn
This door you might not open
from
A Few Figs from Thistles
I do but ask that you be always fair
Love, though for this you riddle me
I think I should have loved you
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
I shall forget you presently
from
Second April
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend
Into the golden vessel of great song
Not with libations, but with shouts
Only until this cigarette is ended
Once more into my arid days like dew
No rose that in a garden ever grew
When I too long have looked upon your face
Let you not say of me when I am old
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
From
The Harp-Weaver
When you, that at this moment are to me
That love at length should find me out and bring
Love is not blind
I know I am but summer to your heart
I pray you if you love me
Pity me not because the light of day
Sometimes when I am wearied suddenly
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know
I shall go back again to the bleak shore
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
What's this of death, from you who never will die?
I see so clearly now my similar years
Your face like a chamber where a king
The light comes back with Columbine
Lord Archer, Death, whom sent you in your stead?
Loving you less than life, a little less
I, being born a woman and distressed
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
Still will I harvest beauty where it grows
How healthily their feet upon the floor
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare
The Buck in the Snow
Grow not too high, grow not too far from home
Grow not too high, grow not too far from home
Life, were thy pains as are the pains of hell
Not that it matters, not that my heart's cry
Country of hunchbacks! — where the strong, straight spine
Upon this marble bust that is not I
For this your mother sweated in the cold
Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Fatal Interview
And you as well must die, beloved dust
What thing is this that, built of salt and lime
This beast that rends me in the sight of all
No lack of counsel from the shrewd and wise
Nay, learnèd doctor, these fine leeches fresh
Of all that ever in extreme disease
Since I cannot persuade you from this mood
Night is my sister, and how deep in love
Yet in an hour to come, disdainful dust
Strange thing that I, by nature nothing prone
Not in the summer casket cool with pearls
Olympian gods, mark now my bedside lamp
I said, seeing how the winter gale increased
Since of no creature living the last breath
My worship from this hour the Sparrow-Drawn
I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields
Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
Shall I be prisoner till my pulses stop
My most Distinguished Guest and Learned Friend
Think not, nor for a moment let your mind
Gone in good sooth you are: not even in a dream
Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane
I know the face of Falsehood and her tongue
Whereas morning in a jeweled crown
Moon, that against the lintel of the west
Peril upon the paths of this desire
Women have loved before as I love now
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Heart, have no pity on this house of bone
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust
Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
Sorrowful dreams remembered after waking
Most wicked words! forbear to speak them out.
Clearly my ruined garden as it stood
Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Believe, if ever the bridges of this town
You say, "Since life is cruel enough at best;"
Love me no more, now let the god depart
You loved me not at all, but let it go
I said in the beginning, did I not?
O ailing Love, compose your struggling wing!
Summer, be seen no more within this wood
If to be left were to be left alone
I know my mind and I have made my choice
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly
Now by the path I climbed, I journey back
There is a well into whose bottomless eye
The heart once broken is a heart no more
If in the years to come you should recall
Oh, sleep forever in the Latmian cave
When you are dead, and your disturbing eyes
From
Wine from These Grapes
As men have loved their lovers in times past
Huntsman, What Quarry?
Enormous moon, that rise behind these hills
Now let the mouth of wailing for a time
Thou famished grave, I will not fill thee yet
Now that the west is washed of clouds and clear
I, too, beneath your moon, almighty Sex
When did I ever deny, though this was fleeting
Be sure my coming was a sharp offense
Not only love plus awful grief
If there were balm in Gilead, I would go
Count them unclean, these tears that turn no mill
Three Sonnets in Tetrameter
Upon this age, that never speaks its mind
My earnestness, which might at first offend
Make Bright the Arrows
I must not die of pity; I must live;
How innocent of me and my dark pain
FROM Mine the Harvest
Those hours when happy hours were my estate
Not, to me, less lavish
Tranquility at length when autumn comes
And is indeed truth beauty? — at the cost
To hold secure the province of Pure Art
And if I die, because that part of me
It is the fashion now to wave aside
Admetus, from my marrow's core I do
What chores these churls do put upon the great
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
Come home, victorious wounded! — let the dead
Read history: so learn your place in Time
Read history, thus learn how small a space
My words that once were virtuous and expressed
Now sits the autumn cricket in the grass
And must I, indeed, Pain, live with you
If I die solvent — die, that is to say
Grief that is grief and properly so height
Felicity of Grief! — even Death being kind
What rider spurs him from the darkening east
Vocalist - Gwen Heistand
Poem source: Edna St. Vincent Millay - Edited by Norma Millay - Published by Harper Perennial - 2011
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