Edna St. Vincent Millay

“ I lay,—for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,—
I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;
And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,
All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!
Witch-Wife She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me! ”

“ Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee
Within my house a spacious chamber, where
Are delicate things to handle and to wear,
And all these things are thine. Dost thou love song?
My minstrels shall attend thee all day long.
Or sigh for flowers? My fairest gardens stand
Open as fields to thee on every hand.
And all thy days this word shall hold the same:
No pleasure shalt thou lack that thou shalt name.
But as for tasks—" he smiled, and shook his head;
"Thou hadst thy task, and laidst it by", he said. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In me all's sunk that leapt, and all that dreamed
Is wakeful for alarm,—oh, shame to thee,
For the ill change that thou hast wrought in me,
Who laugh no more nor lift my throat to sing!
Ah, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing
To have about the house when I was grown
If thou hadst left my little joys alone! ”

“ III All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was going—ah, spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,—
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
Browned at the edges, turned in a day ”

“ Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house. ”

“ THE DREAM
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
⁠And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
⁠But it is good to feel you there.
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,—
⁠White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere
⁠There was a shutter loose,—it screeched! ”

“ I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. ”

“ Long have I known a glory in it all,
⁠But never knew I this
⁠Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf ”

“ 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."
There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth
That can for long keep footing under that
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
Here, let me write it down! I wish to see
Just how a thing like that will look on paper!
"I had you and I have you now no more."
O little words, how can you run so straight
Across the page, beneath the weight you bear? ”

“ I said,—for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,—
"I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;
But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some
As would let him in—and take him in with tears!" I said. ”

“ Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,—
⁠I cannot rear ye straight!
The sun seeks out my garden,
⁠No nook is left in shade,
No mist nor mold nor mildew
⁠Endures on any blade,
Sweet rain slants under every bough:
⁠Ye falter, and ye fade. ”

“ And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; ”

“ God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart! ”

“ I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
Your golden filaments in fair design
Across my duller fibre. And to-day
The shining strip is rent; the exquisite
Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart
Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled
In the damp earth with you. ”

“ I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low ”

“ Whereof Life held content the useless key,
And great coarse hinges, thick and rough with rust,
Whose sudden voice across a silence must,
I knew, be harsh and horrible to hear,—
A strange door, ugly like a dwarf.—So near
I came I felt upon my feet the chill
Of acid wind creeping across the sill. ”

“ With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go. ”

“ That in a little while I shall have quaffed."
Thus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,
Looking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed
Before me one by one till once again
I set new words unto an old refrain:
"Treasures thou hast that never have been mine! ”

“ WHEN THE YEAR GROWS OLD
I cannot but remember
⁠When the year grows old—
October—November—
⁠How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
⁠Go down aeross the sky,
And turn from the window
⁠With a little sharp sigh
And often when the brown leaves
⁠Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
⁠Made a melancholy sound. ”

“ 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! ”

“ I'll keep a little tavern
⁠Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
⁠May set them down and rest.
There shall be plates a-plenty,
⁠And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
⁠Who happen up the hill. ”

“ The room is as you left it; your last touch—
A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself
As saintly—hallows now each simple thing;
Hallows and glorifies, and glows between
The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light. ”

“ You are betrayed. ... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see. . . . ”

“ I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,—and the long year remembers you. ”

“ Strange how few,
After all's said and done, the things that are
Of moment. ”

“ I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one. ”

“ Three Songs of Shattering I The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.
Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Was three long mountains and a wood. ”