Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers

My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love,

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here! But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!

I I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think

Hard seeds of hate I planted That should by now be grown,-- Rough stalks, and from thick stamens

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,

The trees along this city street, Save for the traffic and the trains, Would make a sound as thin and sweet

Why do you follow me?-- Any moment I can be Nothing but a laurel-tree.

Boys and girls that held her dear, Do your weeping now; All you loved of her lies here.

Doubt no more that Oberon-- Never doubt that Pan Lived, and played a reed, and ran

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge

No matter what I say, All that I really love Is the rain that flattens on the bay,

OH, come again to Astolat! I will not ask you to be kind. And you may go when you will go,

Let them bury your big eyes In the secret earth securely, Your thin fingers, and your fair,

There will be rose and rhododendron When you are dead and under ground; Still will be heard from white syringas

Heap not on this mound Roses that she loved so well; Why bewilder her with roses,

Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people,

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night ; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate,

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

People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there,

The room is full of you!--As I came in And closed the door behind me, all at once A something in the air, intangible,

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired

Am I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door--

Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats

These wet rocks where the tide has been, Barnacled white and weeded brown And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,

As I went walking up and down to take the evening air, (Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?) I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;

Butterflies are white and blue In this field we wander through. Suffer me to take your hand.

[VASSAR COLLEGE, 1918] Oh, loveliest throat of all sweet throats, Where now no more the music is,

Cut if you will, with Sleep's dull knife, Each day to half its length, my friend,-- The years that Time takes off my life,

Aye, but she? Your other sister and my other soul Grave Silence, lovelier

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness,--presently

If it were only still!-- With far away the shrill Crying of a cock;

Before she has her floor swept Or her dishes done, Any day you'll find her

Be to her, Persephone, All the things I might not be; Take her head upon your knee.

We were very tired, we were very merry-- We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way,

For the sake of some things That be now no more I will strew rushes

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Oh, Prue she has a patient man, And Joan a gentle lover, And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,--

April this year, not otherwise Than April of a year ago, Is full of whispers, full of sighs,

The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me

Let the little birds sing; Let the little lambs play; Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--

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,--

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts, And drag me at your chariot till I die,-- Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!--

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,--I can bear

I think I should have loved you presently, And given in earnest words I flung in jest; And lifted honest eyes for you to see,

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow! Faithless am I save to love's self alone. Were you not lovely I would leave you now;

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year,

Not in this chamber only at my birth-- When the long hours of that mysterious night Were over, and the morning was in sight--

If I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again-- Read from the back-page of a paper, say,

This door you might not open, and you did; So enter now, and see for what slight thing You are betrayed. . . .    Here is no treasure hid,

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend; Well, such you are,--but well enough we know How thick about us root, how rankly grow

Into the golden vessel of great song Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;

Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove, Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after

Only until this cigarette is ended, A little moment at the end of all, While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,

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

Once more into my arid days like dew, Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,

No rose that in a garden ever grew, In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine, Though buried under centuries of fine

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 you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,

Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this: How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,

As to some lovely temple, tenantless Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass, Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass

Cherish you then the hope I shall forget At length, my lord, Pieria?--put away For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain,--

To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness

I'll keep a little tavern Below the high hill's crest, Wherein all grey-eyed people

Ho, Giant!    This is I! I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky! La,--but it's lovely, up so high!

God had called us, and we came; Our loved Earth to ashes left; Heaven was a neighbor's house,

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

Love, if I weep it will not matter, And if you laugh I shall not care; Foolish am I to think about it,

I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high--higher than most--

OH, here the air is sweet and still, And soft's the grass to lie on; And far away's the little hill

Oh, I am grown so free from care Since my heart broke! I set my throat against the air,

I had a little Sorrow, Born of a little Sin, I found a room all damp with gloom

And what are you that, wanting you I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days

Down, you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel! I have stolen breath

All right, Go ahead! What's in a name?

Death, I say, my heart is bowed Unto thine,--O mother! This red gown will make a shroud

What should I be but a prophet and a liar, Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar? Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,

"Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,

There was a road ran past our house Too lovely to explore. I asked my mother once--she said

And if I loved you Wednesday, Well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday--

Minstrel, what have you to do With this man that, after you, Sharing not your happy fate,

Still must the poet as of old, In barren attic bleak and cold, Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to

If he should lie a-dying I am not willing you should go Into the earth, where Helen went;

How shall I know, unless I go To Cairo and Cathay, Whether or not this blessed spot

The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn't a train goes by all day

White with daisies and red with sorrel And empty, empty under the sky!-- Life is a quest and love a quarrel--

I cannot but remember When the year grows old-- October--November--

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. And what did I see I had not seen before? Only a question less or a question more;

She is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,

"Thin Rain, whom are you haunting, That you haunt my door?" --Surely it is not I she's wanting;