Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Second April
    Second April
    Second April
    Ebook94 pages39 minutes

    Second April

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    Author

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters, and was encouraged by her mother to develop her talents for music and poetry. Her long poem "Renascence" won critical attention in an anthology contest in 1912 and secured for her a patron who enabled her to go to Vassar College. After graduating in 1917 she lived in Greenwich Village in New York for a few years, acting, writing satirical pieces for journals (usually under a pseudonym), and continuing to work at her poetry. She traveled in Europe throughout 1921-22 as a "foreign correspondent" for Vanity Fair. Her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) gained her a reputation for hedonistic wit and cynicism, but her other collections (including the earlier Renascence and Other Poems [1917]) are without exception more seriously passionate or reflective. In 1923 she married Eugene Boissevain and -- after further travel -- embarked on a series of reading tours which helped to consolidate her nationwide renown. From 1925 onwards she lived at Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, New York, where her husband protected her from all responsibilities except her creative work. Often involved in feminist or political causes (including the Sacco-Vanzetti case of 1927), she turned to writing anti-fascist propaganda poetry in 1940 and further damaged a reputation already in decline. In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor. She died in 1950.

    Read more from Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Related to Second April

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      He kept me through childhood.There was a reasonhe kept me from sin like a biscuitwarming in the oven.It’s okay I tell the rain to keep him a theorybut bring him downonce in a while.It’s okay to be honest or selfishbut find the spot where you sinka li

      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      (Residue, cellophane, liquid amber, pearl resin on cardboard) Platinum blonde, with whiteboxes of Russianchocolates. Silver liquid glitter,lemon candle, crimsonleather 1970 Mercedessedan interior. Gum drops, fox fur, creamblouse with gold specksand t

      2 min read

    • Article

      A River Runs Through It

      Apr 14, 2020

      A River Runs Through It
      1 min read

    • Article

      How to Stop Crying

      Nov 7, 2019

      How to Stop Crying
      7 min read

    • Article

      REMAINING SILENT The facts

      Mar 1, 2020

      Sometime in 1985, I sit at a table in a college library among tall metal shelves, gray or green, that squeak if you lean against them or slide a heavy book across the horizontal rims, a rinse of dust always in the air. I’ve pulled out a large art boo

      14 min read

    • Article

      Reconsidering Pablo Neruda in Light of ‘The Poet’s Calling’

      Jun 4, 2018

      When Pablo Neruda was expelled from France in 1952, he wrote this to his beloved countrymen in Chile: “The future of humanity may be endangered in the hands of a few evil men, but it does not belong to them. The future of man is ours, because we are

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Jesse Nathan

      Jun 8, 2021

      Young gray cat puddled under the boxwood,Only the eyes alert. Appressed to dirt. That hissThe hiss of the grasses hissing What shouldWhat should. Blank road shimmers. On days like this,My mind, you hardlySeem to be.On days like these. No, no. See tha

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2019

      Sep 5, 2019

      Eight new and notable collections you want on your nightstand this month, including work by a lost Catalan master and the latest from our new poet laureate. The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      I’ve seen enough films where a character nickshimself shaving or maybe has a bread knife slip and the thinrun of blood is supposed to stand for some violence,for something he did and is desperateto cover up, but the truth will out—I’ve seen enough th

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      Bhanu Kapil

      Mar 15, 2019

      Everything is red. The trees look like they’re bending over. The lorry is approaching the village. Nurpur. Don’t tell anyone it was Nurpur. Just say it was any old village. A motorbike was coming from the opposite direction. The driver of the motorbi

      5 min read

    Reviews for Second April

    4/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The poem "Travel" reminded me of Freya Stark in it's restlessness and sense of adventure. To look at train tracks and wonder where they end up. To watch a plane make its way across the sky, the contrails fading bit by bit, and guess its final destination. Who hasn't done that?
    • 5/5
      Lyric poetry at its best. The second April after her affair. The sonnet sequence that establishes her firmly as a master of that form.

    Book preview

    Second April - Edna St. Vincent Millay

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second April, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: Second April

    Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Release Date: August 13, 2008 [EBook #1247]

    Last Updated: February 6, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND APRIL ***

    Produced by Judy Boss, and David Widger

    SECOND APRIL

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    TO

    MY BELOVED FRIEND

    CAROLINE B. DOW

    CONTENTS

    SECOND APRIL

    SPRING

    CITY TREES

    THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG

    JOURNEY

    EEL-GRASS

    ELEGY BEFORE DEATH

    THE BEAN-STALK

    WEEDS

    PASSER MORTUUS EST

    PASTORAL

    ASSAULT

    TRAVEL

    LOW-TIDE

    SONG OF A SECOND APRIL

    ROSEMARY

    THE POET AND HIS BOOK

    ALMS

    INLAND

    TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG

    WRAITH

    EBB

    ELAINE

    BURIAL

    MARIPOSA

    THE LITTLE HILL

    DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON

    LAMENT

    EXILED

    THE DEATH OF AUTUMN

    ODE TO SILENCE

    EPITAPH

    PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE

    CHORUS

    ELEGY

    DIRGE

    SONNETS

    WILD SWANS

    SECOND APRIL

    SPRING

         To what purpose, April, do you return again?

         Beauty is not enough.

         You can no longer quiet me with the redness

         Of little leaves opening stickily.

         I know what I know.

         The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

         The spikes of the crocus.

         The smell of the earth is good.

         It is apparent that there is no death.

         But what does that signify?

         Not only under ground are the brains of men

         Eaten by maggots,

         Life in itself

         Is nothing,

         An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

         It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

         April

         Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

    CITY TREES

         The trees along this city street,

           Save for the traffic and the trains,

         Would make a sound as thin and sweet

           As trees in country lanes.

         And people standing in their shade

           Out of a shower, undoubtedly

         Would hear such music as is made

           Upon a country tree.

         Oh, little leaves that are so dumb

           Against the shrieking city air,

         I watch you when the wind has come,—

           I know what sound is there.

    THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG

         God had called us, and we came;

           Our loved Earth to ashes left;

         Heaven was a neighbor's house,

           Open to us, bereft.

         Gay the lights of Heaven showed,

           And 'twas God who walked ahead;

         Yet I wept along the road,

           Wanting my own house instead.

         Wept unseen, unheeded cried,

           "All you things my eyes have kissed,

         Fare you well!  We meet no more,

           Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

         Weary wings that rise and fall

           All day long above the fire!"—

         Red with heat was every wall,

           Rough with heat was every wire—

         "Fare you well, you little winds

           That the flying embers chase!

         Fare you well, you shuddering day,

           With your hands before your face!

         And, ah, blackened by strange blight,

           Or to a false sun unfurled,

         Now forevermore goodbye,

           All the gardens in the world!

         On the windless hills of Heaven,

           That I have no wish to see,

         White, eternal lilies stand,

           By a lake of ebony.

         But the Earth forevermore

           Is a place where nothing grows,—

         Dawn will come, and no bud break;

           Evening, and no blossom close.

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1