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

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s childhood was a life of transient poverty. Her mother Cora, who was separated for many years from, and finally divorced in 1904, her father Henry Tolman Millay, moved Edna and her two sisters constantly from town to town during their upbringing. The family would finally settle in a small house on the property of Cora’s aunt in Camden, Maine. It was here that Edna would write some of her first lines of poetry. Edna would first gain recognition when her 1912 poem “Renascence” garnered a fourth place prize in a poetry contest for “The Lyric Year”. Edna would go on to win the highest prize for poetry, the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, for her work “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”. Noted for its lyrical beauty and at times controversial depiction of female sexuality, the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay marks some of the best of the early 20th century. Contained in this volume are some of her most important works: “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: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781420958201

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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THE SELECTED POETRY OF

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

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

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5819-5

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5820-1

This edition copyright © 2018. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of a photo of Edna St. Vincent Millay in Mamaroneck, NY, 1914, by Arnold Genthe. Colorization by Erica Marina Amaral. Colorization copyright 2018 Digireads.com Publishing.

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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

Reviews for 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)

[A girl named Sudafed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Millay is a brilliant poet whose work deserves greater attention.

[lethalmauve · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have always been fond of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnets. It all started with Love Is Not All one evening whilst looking for something to read before going to bed. I knew then I had to seek more of her works. This sonnet is not included in this collection however but the ones that are have strengthened that fondness by a mile. To discover she was openly bisexual also sheds a new light upon her works; subtly some of them hints on same-sex relationships. Regrettably, I find rhyming poetry a little tiring these days that amidst her playfulness, creativity, sarcasm, humour, and wit — whilst fastening a lot of themes within the breaks and spaces between her vivid words enough to draw a memory or evoke a sense of a thousand emotions be it the departure of autumn, death at your fingertips ("Mine is a body that should die at sea! And have for a grave, instead of a grave Six feet deep and the length of me, All the water that is under the wave!") or the painful warfare of longing ("Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea;" and "My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.") and a heartbreak ("My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love, The Sashes are beset with snow." and "And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake?") — has turned off my enjoyment overall. Despite this personal gripe of mine there's no question hers are one of the best rhyming poetry I've read so far in comparison to W.H. Auden's whose poetry collection I haven't finished yet due to them being twice as taxing although Funeral Blues and O Tell Me The Truth About Love (funny little thing how this one involves nose-picking) have always been my personal favourites.For all of us ageing:"Was it for this I uttered prayers,And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,That now, domestic as a plate,I should retire at half-past eight?"— GROWN-UPAs a side note, I dearly liked these: Indifference, Time does not bring relief; you all have lied, If I should learn, in some quite casual way, The Dream, I shall forget you presently, my dear, MacDougal Street, Passer Mortuus Est, Travel, Exiled, Grown-up, Recuerdo, Thursday, Ebb, We all talk of taxes, and I call you friend, Alms, and I know I am but summer to your heart.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Her poetry is so true and sounds so unaffected..."After all's said and done, the things that are / Of moment. / Few indeed! When I can make / Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! / 'I had you and I have you now no more.'" and "Time does not bring relief; you all lied..." She is still transcendentally pithy.