The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Renascence and Other Poems, A Few Figs From Thistles, Second April, and The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver)

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

"The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay" is a collection of some of her most loved poems. Brought together in this volume are the individual works of "Renascence and Other Poems," "A Few Figs From Thistles," "Second April," and "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781420907087

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 In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor.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.

Book preview

THE SELECTED POETRY OF

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS

A FEW FIGS FROM THISTLES

SECOND APRIL

AND

THE BALLAD OF THE HARP-WEAVER

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

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CONTENTS

RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS

Renascence

Interim

The Suicide

God's World

Afternoon on a Hill

Sorrow

Tavern

Ashes of Life

The Little Ghost

Kin to Sorrow

Three Songs of Shattering

The Shroud

The Dream

Indifference

Witch-Wife

Blight

When the Year Grows Old

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

A FEW FIGS FROM THISTLES

First Fig

Second Fig

Recuerdo

Thursday

To the Not Impossible Him

Macdougal Street

The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge

She is Overhead Singing

The Prisoner

The Unexplorer

Grown-Up

The Penitent

Daphne

Portrait by a Neighbor

Midnight Oil

The Merry Maid

To Kathleen

To S. M.

The Philosopher

Four Sonnets

I. Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,

II. I think I should have loved you presently,

III. Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!

IV. I Shall forget you presently, my dear,

SECOND APRIL

Spring

City Trees

The Blue-Flag in the Bog

Journey

Yet onward!

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

Memorial to D. C.

Prologue

Epitaph

Prayer to Persephone

Chorus

Elegy

Dirge

Sonnets

Wild Swans

THE BALLAD OF THE HARP-WEAVER

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 I looked, and, after all,

The sky was not so very tall.

The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,

And – sure enough! – I see the top!

The sky, I thought, is not so grand;

I 'most could touch it with my hand!

And reaching up my hand to try,

I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and – lo! – Infinity

Came down and settled over me;

Forced back my scream into my chest,

Bent back my arm upon my breast,

And, pressing of the Undefined

The definition on my mind,

Held up before my eyes a glass

Through which my shrinking sight did pass

Until it seemed I must behold

Immensity made manifold;

Whispered to me a word whose sound

Deafened the air for worlds around,

And brought unmuffled to my ears

The gossiping of friendly spheres,

The creaking of the tented sky,

The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last

The How and Why of all things, past,

And present, and forevermore.

The Universe, cleft to the core,

Lay open to my probing sense

That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence

But could not, – nay! But needs must suck

At the great wound, and could not pluck

My lips away till I had drawn

All venom out. – Ah, fearful pawn!

For my omniscience paid I toll

In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all

Atoning mine, and mine the gall

Of all regret. Mine was the weight

Of every brooded wrong, the hate

That stood behind each envious thrust,

Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while for every grief,

Each suffering, I craved relief

With individual desire, –

Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire

About a thousand people crawl;

Perished with each, – then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;

He moved his eyes and looked at me;

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,

And knew his hunger as my own.

I saw at sea a great fog bank

Between two ships that struck and sank;

A thousand screams the heavens smote;

And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death

That was not mine; mine each last breath

That, crying, met an answering cry

From the compassion that was I.

All suffering mine, and mine its rod;

Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity

Pressed down upon the finite Me!

My anguished spirit, like a bird,

Beating against my lips I heard;

Yet lay the weight so close about

There was