Edna St. Vincent Millay

“ Suffer me to take your hand. Death comes in a day or two. All the things we ever knew Will be ashes in that hour, Mark the transient butterfly, How he hangs upon the flower. Suffer me to take your hand. Suffer me to cherish you Till the dawn is in the sky. Whether I be false or true, Death comes in a day or two.
THE LITTLE HILL OH, here the air is sweet and still, And soft's the grass to lie on; And far away's the little hill They took for Christ to die on. And there's a hill across the brook, And down the brook's another; But, oh, the little hill they took,— I think I am its mother! ”

“ THE DEATH OF AUTUMN When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,— Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die, And will be born again,—but ah, to see Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky! ”

“ But your voice,—never the rushing Of a river underground, Not the rising of the wind In the trees before the rain, Not the woodcock's watery call, Not the note the white-throat utters, Not the feet of children pushing Yellow leaves along the gutters In the blue and bitter fall, Shall content my musing mind For the beauty of that sound That in no new way at all Ever will be heard again. Sweetly through the sappy stalk Of the vigorous weed, Holding all it held before, Cherished by the faithful sun, On and on eternally Shall your altered fluid run, Bud and bloom and go to seed ”

“ Crumbling stones and sliding sand Is the road to Heaven now; Icy at my straining knees Drags the awful under-tow; Soon but stepping-stones of dust Will the road to Heaven be,— Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Reach a hand and rescue me! "There—there, my blue-flag flower; Hush—hush—go to sleep; That is only God you hear, Counting up His folded sheep! Lullabye—lullabye— That is only God that calls, Missing me, seeking me, Ere the road to nothing falls! He will set His mighty feet Firmly on the sliding sand; Like a little frightened bird I will creep into His hand ”

“ Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled, Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move; Here might I hope to find you day or night, And here I come to look for you, my love, Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead. XII Cherish you then the hope I shall forget At length, my lord, Pieria?—put away For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay These mortal bones against my body set, For all the puny fever and frail sweat Of human love,—renounce for these, I say, The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet? ”

“ I long for Silence as they long for breath Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea; What thing can be So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death What fury, what considerable rage, if only she, Upon whose icy breast, Unquestioned, uncaressed, One time I lay, And whom always I lack, Even to this day, Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away, If only she therewith be given me back? ”

“ Yours is a face of which I can forget The color and the features, every one, The words not ever, and the smiles not yet; But in your day this moment is the sun Upon a hill, after the sun has set. V Once more into my arid days like dew, Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, A treacherous messenger, the thought of you Comes to destroy me; once more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew. ”

“ All my life, Following Care along the dusty road, Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed; Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long Over my shoulder have I looked at peace; And now I fain would lie in this long grass And close my eyes. Yet onward! Cat birds call Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry, Drawing the twilight close about their throats. Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines Go up the rocks and wait ”

“ But the Earth forevermore Is a place where nothing grows,— Dawn will come, and no bud break; Evening, and no blossom close. Spring will come, and wander slow Over an indifferent land, Stand beside an empty creek, Hold a dead seed in her hand." God had called us, and we came, But the blessed road I trod Was a bitter road to me, And at heart I questioned God. ”

“ Women quiet with your weeping Lest you wake a workman sleeping, Mix me with your grief! Boys and girls that steal From the shocking laughter Of the old, to kneel By a dripping rafter Under the discolored eaves, Out of trunks with hingeless covers Lifting tales of saints and lovers, Travelers, goblins, thieves, Suns that shine by night, Mountains made from valleys,— Bear me to the light, Flat upon your bellies By the webby window lie, Where the little flies are crawling,— Read me, margin me with scrawling, Do not let me die! ”

“ Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene, Though it would seem a ruined place and after Your lichenous heart, being full Of broken columns, caryatides Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees, And urns funereal altered into dust Minuter than the ashes of the dead, And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust, Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead. There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall, And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds ”

“ Spring will not ail nor autumn falter; Nothing will know that you are gone, Saving alone some sullen plough-land None but yourself sets foot upon; Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed Nothing will know that you are dead,— These, and perhaps a useless wagon Standing beside some tumbled shed. Oh, there will pass with your great passing Little of beauty not your own,— Only the light from common water, Only the grace from simple stone!
THE BEAN-STALK Ho, Giant! This is I! I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky! ”

“ PASSER MORTUUS EST Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness,—presently Every bed is narrow. Unremembered as old rain Dries the sheer libation, And the little petulant hand Is an annotation. After all, my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?
PASTORAL If it were only still!— With far away the shrill Crying of a cock; Or the shaken bell From a cow's throat Moving through the bushes ”

“ How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, And make you old, and leave me in my prime? How you and I, who scale together yet A little while the sweet, immortal height No pilgrim may remember or forget, As sure as the world turns, some granite night Shall lie awake and know the gracious flame Gone out forever on the mutual stone ”

“ VI No rose that in a garden ever grew, In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine, Though buried under centuries of fine Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew Forever, and forever lost from view, But must again in fragrance rich as wine The grey aisles of the air incarnadine When the old summers surge into a new. ”

“ Longing alone is singer to the lute; Let still on nettles in the open sigh The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute As any man, and love be far and high, That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit Found on the ground by every passer-by. III Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove, Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after The launching of the colored moths of Love. ”

“ Oh, say if on this hill Somewhere your sister's body lies in death, So I may follow there, and make a wreath Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast Shall lie till age has withered them! (Ah, sweetly from the rest I see Turn and consider me Compassionate Euterpe!) "There is a gate beyond the gate of Death, Beyond the gate of everlasting Life, Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith, "Whereon but to believe is horror! ”

“ LOW-TIDE These wet rocks where the tide has been, Barnacled white and weeded brown And slimed beneath to a beautiful green, These wet rocks where the tide went down Will show again when the tide is high Faint and perilous, far from shore, No place to dream, but a place to die,— The bottom of the sea once more. There was a child that wandered through A giant's empty house all day,— House full of wonderful things and new, But no fit place for a child to play. ”

“ Oh, grey hill, Where the grazing herd Licks the purple blossom, Crops the spiky weed! Oh, stony pasture, Where the tall mullein Stands up so sturdy On its little seed!
ASSAULT I I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think I should not so have ventured forth alone At dusk upon this unfrequented road. II I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, That am a timid woman, on her way From one house to another! ”

“ IX Let you not say of me when I am old, In pretty worship of my withered hands Forgetting who I am, and how the sands Of such a life as mine run red and gold Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold, Here walketh passionless age!"—for there expands A curious superstition in these lands, And by its leave some weightless tales are told. ”

“ BURIAL 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! And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, Such as a living man might fear, And eat me while I am firm and fresh,— Not wait till I've been dead for a year! ”

“ Where dark Persephone the winter round, Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily, With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, Stares on the stagnant stream That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell, There, there will she be found, She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound. ”

“ 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. ”

“ People the waves have not awakened, Spanking the boats at the harbor's head, What do they long for, as I long for,— Starting up in my inland bed, Beating the narrow walls, and finding Neither a window nor a door, Screaming to God for death by drowning,— One salt taste of the sea once more? ”

“ VII When I too long have looked upon your face, Wherein for me a brightness unobscured Save by the mists of brightness has its place, And terrible beauty not to be endured, I turn away reluctant from your light, And stand irresolute, a mind undone, A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight From having looked too long upon the sun. ”

“ Ah, for in this dourest, sorest Age man's eye has looked upon, Death to fauns and death to fays, Still the dog-wood dares to raise— Healthy tree, with trunk and root— Ivory bowls that bear no fruit, And the starlings and the jays— Birds that cannot even sing— Dare to come again in spring! ”

“ Growing old is dying young. Minstrel, what is this to you: That a man you never knew, When your grave was far and green, Sat and gossipped with a queen? Thalia knows how rare a thing Is it, to grow old and sing; When a brown and tepid tide Closes in on every side. ”

“ Scholars at your study; hunters Lost amid the whirling winter's Whiteness uniform; Men that long for sleep; Men that wake and revel;— If an old song leap To your senses' level At such moments, may it be Sometimes, though a moment only, Some forgotten, quaint and homely Vehicle of me! ”

“ All night there isn't a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming But I see its cinders red on the sky, And hear its engine steaming. 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. ”

“ blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. ”

“ I am the booth where Folly holds her fair; Impious no less in ruin than in strength, When I lie crumbled to the earth at length, Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer." ”

“ Whereon to meditate engendereth Even in deathless spirits such as I A tumult in the breath, A chilling of the inexhaustible blood Even in my veins that never will be dry, And in the austere, divine monotony That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood. ”

“ From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters, finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once was I! ”