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    Renascence and Other Poems
    Renascence and Other Poems
    Renascence and Other Poems
    Ebook72 pages35 minutes

    Renascence and Other Poems

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    4.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1917
    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 In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor.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.

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    Reviews for Renascence and Other Poems

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    • 4/5
      I don't know why I bought this book years ago. Maybe because I'd heard the name Edna St. Vincent Millay, and yet had never read or heard a single one of her poems. While skimming through "Books of the Century," this title caught my eye and I remembered that I had "Renascence and Other Poems" somewhere among the thousands of books on my shelves. After some searching it appeared, paper slightly yellowing (it is a $1 Dover edition), I sat down and read the poems--on some I lingered, others were quickly digested.The general themes are: Death, Loss, Nature. Poetry is a crapshoot for me--either I like a poem immensely, feel it as a tangible thing or I don't get it. That is, I understand the words, even the images, maybe even the idea, but just don't feel what is so special about a particular poem. So with this collection--some of the poems resonated as an auditory, visual and emotional thing, others...were just there. At first I thought, "OK, now I've read these poems, I can donate the book and free up some shelf space", but now, the next day, I feel a need to hold on to the book and delve back into the poems that lingered in my subconscience, like a memory vague, but compelling.
    • 3/5
      The only poem in here that I liked was "Afternoon on a Hill". I am, though, willing to admit that as my problem, not history's or literature's. I have no real taste for poetry and have had little training in it's appreciation. I therefore think that poets "do go on a lot". Perhaps that's why the succinctness of "Afternoon on a hill" painted a really good picture for me.
    • 5/5
      What an awesome range of poetics and understanding.
    • 5/5
      The title poem is simply awe-inspiring. Just a few simple pages in which Millay's sing-songy, non-challent rhythms and rhymes build into profound and overwhelming images.

    Book preview

    Renascence and Other Poems - Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Project Gutenberg's Renascence and Other Poems, 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.net

    Title: Renascence and Other Poems

    Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Release Date: June 19, 2008 [EBook #109]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS ***

    Produced by Alan Light. HTML version by Al Haines.

    Renascence and Other Poems

    by

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Contents:

    Renascence

    All I could see from where I stood

    Interim

    The room is full of you!—As I came in

    The Suicide

    "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!

    God's World

    O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

    Afternoon on a Hill

    I will be the gladdest thing

    Sorrow

    Sorrow like a ceaseless rain

    Tavern

    I'll keep a little tavern

    Ashes of Life

    Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;

    The Little Ghost

    I knew her for a little ghost

    Kin to Sorrow

    Am I kin to Sorrow,

    Three Songs of Shattering

    I

    The first rose on my rose-tree

    II

    Let the little birds sing;

    III

    All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!

    The Shroud

    Death, I say, my heart is bowed

    The Dream

    Love, if I weep it will not matter,

    Indifference

    I said,—for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,—

    Witch-Wife

    She is neither pink nor pale,

    Blight

    Hard seeds of hate I planted

    When the Year Grows Old

    I cannot but remember

    Sonnets

    I

    Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,

    II

    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

    III

    Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,

    IV

    Not in this chamber only at my birth—

    V

    If I should learn, in some quite casual way,

    VI       Bluebeard

    This door you might not open, and you did;

    Renascence and Other Poems

    Renascence

    All I could see from where I stood

    Was three long mountains and a wood;

    I turned and looked another way,

    And saw three islands in a bay.

    So with my eyes I traced the line

    Of the horizon, thin and fine,

    Straight around till I was come

    Back to where I'd started from;

    And all I saw from where I stood

    Was three long mountains and a wood.

    Over these things I could not see;

    These were the things that bounded me;

    And I could touch them with my hand,

    Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

    And all at once things seemed so small

    My breath came short, and scarce at all.

    But, sure, the sky is big, I said;

    Miles and miles above my head;

    So here upon my back I'll lie

    And look my fill into the sky.

    And so

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