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Ambleside Online Sixty Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent MillayAmerican, 1892-1950
List of Selected
Poems
Renascence
God's World
Blight
Sonnets:
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
If I should learn, in some quite casual way
Baccalaureate
Hymn, Vassar College, 1917
City Trees
Journey
Travel
Elaine
The Little Hill
Exiled
Sonnets:
When I too long have looked upon your face
Once more into my arid days like dew
Portrait By a
Neighbor
The Philosopher
My Heart, Being
Hungry
Departure
The Spring and The
Fall
The Ballad of the
Harp-Weaver
Spring Song
Sonnets:
When you, that at this moment are to me
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know
I shall go back again to the bleak shore
Loving you less than life, a little less
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
How healthily their feet upon the floor
One way there was of muting in the mind
It came into her mind, seeing how the snow
To the Wife of a
Sick Friend
To a Friend
Estranged From Me
The Buck In The
Snow
Hangman's Oak
The Cameo
To A Young Girl
Sonnets:
For this, your mother sweated in the cold ("To Jesus on
His Birthday")
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
--
Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Now by the path I climbed, I journey back.
Autumn Daybreak
The Oak-Leaves
The Fawn
Sonnet
The Leaf and The
Tree
On the Wide Heath
Plaid Dress
Sonnet:
Upon this age, that never speaks its mind
To the Maid of
Orleans
The courage that
my mother had (untitled)
Here in a Rocky Cup
The Agnostic
Cave Canem
An Ancient Gesture
To a Snake
Sometimes, oh,
often, indeed (untitled)
Sonnets:
And is indeed truth beauty?--at the cost
It is the fashion now to wave aside
Read history: so learn your place in Time
Read history: thus learn how small a space
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poems
from Renascence, 1917
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 no room
for it without.
And so beneath the
weight lay I
And suffered
death, but could not die.
Long had I lain
thus, craving death,
When quietly the
earth beneath
Gave way, and inch
by inch, so great
At last had grown
the crushing weight,
Into the earth I
sank till I
Full six feet
under ground did lie,
And sank no more,
--there is no weight
Can follow here,
however great.
From off my breast
I felt it roll,
And as it went my
tortured soul
Burst forth and
fled in such a gust
That all about me
swirled the dust.
Deep in the earth
I rested now;
Cool is its hand
upon the brow
And soft its
breast beneath the head
Of one who is so
gladly dead.
And all at once,
and over all
The pitying rain
began to fall;
I lay and heard
each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly,
thatched roof,
And seemed to love
the sound far more
Than ever I had
done before.
For rain it hath a
friendly sound
To one who's six
feet underground;
And scarce the
friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a
quiet place.
The rain, I said,
is kind to come
And speak to me in
my new home.
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.
How can I bear it;
buried here,
While overhead the
sky grows clear
And blue again
after the storm?
O, multi-colored,
multiform,
Beloved beauty
over me,
That I shall
never, never see
Again!
Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never
more behold!
Sleeping your
myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred
away from you!
O God, I cried,
give me new birth,
And put me back
upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's
gigantic gourd
And let the heavy
rain, down-poured
In one big
torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave
away from me!
I ceased; and
through the breathless hush
That answered me,
the far-off rush
Of herald wings
came whispering
Like music down
the vibrant string
Of my ascending
prayer, and--crash!
Before the wild
wind's whistling lash
The startled
storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in
terror down the sky,
And the big rain
in one black wave
Fell from the sky
and struck my grave.
I know not how
such things can be;
I only know there
came to me
A fragrance such
as never clings
To aught save
happy living things;
A sound as of some
joyous elf
Singing sweet
songs to please himself,
And, through and
over everything,
A sense of glad
awakening.
The grass,
a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I
could hear;
I felt the rain's
cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly
across my lips,
Laid gently on my
sealed sight,
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;
I raised my
quivering arms on high;
I laughed and
laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat
a strangling sob
Caught fiercely,
and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears
into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no
dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter
hide from me
Thy radiant
identity!
Thou canst not
move across the grass
But my quick eyes
will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however
silently,
But my hushed
voice will answer Thee.
I know the path
that tells Thy way
Through the cool
eve of every day;
God, I can push
the grass apart
And lay my finger
on Thy heart!
The world stands
out on either side
No wider than the
heart is wide;
Above the world is
stretched the sky,--
No higher than the
soul is high.
The heart can push
the sea and land
Farther away on
either hand;
The soul can split
the sky in two,
And let the face
of God shine through.
But East and West
will pinch the heart
That can not keep
them pushed apart;
And he whose soul
is flat--the sky
Will cave in on
him by and by.
God's World
O world, I cannot
hold thee close enough!
Thy
winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy
mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this
autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry
with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift
the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I
cannot get thee close enough!
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;
prithee, let no bird call.
Blight
Hard seeds of hate
I planted
That
should by now be grown,--
Rough stalks, and
from thick stamens
A
poisonous pollen blown,
And odors rank,
unbreathable,
From dark
corollas thrown!
At dawn from my
damp garden
I shook
the chilly dew;
The thin boughs
locked behind me
That
sprang to let me through;
The blossoms
slept,--I sought a place
Where
nothing lovely grew.
And there, when
day was breaking,
I knelt
and looked around:
The light was
near, the silence
Was
palpitant with sound;
I drew my hate
from out my breast
And thrust
it in the ground.
Oh, ye so fiercely
tended,
Ye little
seeds of hate!
I bent above your
growing
Early and
noon and late,
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.
Sonnet:
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;
I want him at the
shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt
from every mountain-side,
And last year's
leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's
bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my
heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a
hundred places where I fear
To go,-- so
with his memory they brim!
And entering with
relief some quiet place
Where never fell
his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is
no memory of him here!"
And so stand
stricken, so remembering him!
Sonnet:
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,
Held by a
neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner
of this avenue
And such a
street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying
man--who happened to be you--
At noon
to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry
aloud--I could not cry
Aloud, or
wring my hands in such a place--
I should but watch
the station lights rush by
With a
more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes
and read with greater care
Where to
store furs and how to treat the hair.
***********************************
Baccalaureate Hymn
(Vassar College,
1917)
Thou great
offended God of love and kindness,
We have
denied, we have forgotten Thee!
With deafer sense
endow, enlighten us with blindness,
Who, having
ears and eyes, nor hear nor see,
Bright are the
banners on the tents of laughter;
Shunned is
Thy temple, weeds are on the path;
Yet if Thou leave
us, Lord, what help is ours thereafter?-
Be with us
still,-Light not today Thy wrath!
Dark were the ways
where of ourselves we sought Thee,
Anguish,
Derision, Doubt, Desire and Mirth;
Twisted, obscure,
unlovely, Lord, the gifts we brought Thee,
Teach us
what ways have light, what gifts have worth.
Since we are dust,
how shall we not betray Thee?
Still blows
about the world the ancient wind-
Nor yet for lives
untried and tearless would we pray Thee:
Lord let us
suffer that we may grow kind!
"Lord, Lord!" we
cried of old, who now before Thee,
Stricken
with prayer, shaken with praise, are dumb;
Father, accept our
worship when we least adore Thee,
And when we
call Thee not, oh, hear and come!
***********************************
from Second April, 1921
City Trees
The trees along
this city street,
Save for
the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound
as thin and sweet
As trees
in country lanes.
And people
standing in their shade
Out of a
shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such
music as is made
Upon a
country tree.
Oh, little leaves
that are so dumb
Against
the shrieking city air,
I watch you when
the wind has come,--
I know
what sound is there.
Journey
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
Of passing
pleasant places! 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; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their
dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady
wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that
through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced
roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and
beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart,
only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path
is sweet on either side
All through the
dragging day,--sharp underfoot
And hot, and like
dead mist the dry dust hangs--
But far, oh, far
as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long
as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine:
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.
Travel
The railroad track
is miles away,
And the day
is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a
train goes by all day
But I hear
its whistle shrieking.
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.
Elaine
Oh, come again to
Astolat!
I will not
ask you to be kind.
And you may go
when you will go,
And I will
stay behind.
I will not say how
dear you are,
Or ask you
if you hold me dear,
Or trouble you
with things for you
The way I
did last year.
So still the
orchard, Lancelot,
So very
still the lake shall be,
You could not
guess--though you should guess--
What is
become of me.
So wide shall be
the garden-walk,
The
garden-seat so very wide,
You needs must
think--if you should think--
The lily
maid had died.
Save that, a
little way away,
I'd watch
you for a little while,
To see you speak,
the way you speak,
And smile,
-- if you should smile.
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 moon that saw
Gethsemane,
I watch it
rise and set:
It has so many
things to see,
They help
it to forget.
But little hills
that sit at home
So many
hundred years,
Remember Greece,
remember Rome,
Remember
Mary's tears.
And far away in
Palestine,
Sadder than
any other,
Grieves still the
hill that I call mine,--
I think I
am its mother!
Exiled
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;
Wanting the
sticky, salty sweetness
Of the
strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud
sound and the soft sound
Of the big
surf that breaks all day.
Always before
about my dooryard,
Marking the
reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and
dragging drift-wood,
Straggled
the purple wild sweet-pea;
Always I climbed
the wave at morning,
Shook the
sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught
beneath great buildings,
Stricken
with noise, confused with light.
If I could hear
the green piles groaning
Under the
windy wooden piers,
See once again the
bobbing barrels,
And the
black sticks that fence the weirs,
If I could see the
weedy mussels
Crusting
the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again
the hungry crying
Overhead,
of the wheeling gulls,
Feel once again
the shanty straining
Under the
turning of the tide,
Fear once again
the rising freshet,
Dread the
bell in the fog outside,--
I should be
happy,--that was happy
All day
long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to
hold and handle
Shells and
anchors and ships again!
I should be happy,
that am happy
Never at
all since I came here.
I am too long away
from water.
I have a
need of water near.
Sonnet:
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.
Then is my daily
life a narrow room
In which a little
while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by
impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar
things grown strange to me
Making my way, I
pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become
accustomed to the dark.
Sonnet:
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.
And once again,
and wiser in no wise,
I chase your
colored phantom on the air,
And sob and curse
and fall and weep and rise
And stumble
pitifully on to where,
Miserable and
lost, with stinging eyes,
Once more I clasp,
--and there is nothing there.
*************
from A Few Figs From Thistles, 1922
Portrait By a
Neighbor
Before she has her
floor swept
Or her
dishes done,
Any day you'll
find her
A-sunning
in the sun!
It's long after
midnight
Her key's
in the lock,
And you never see
her chimney smoke
Till past
ten o'clock!
She digs in her
garden
With a
shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy
lettuce
By the
light of the moon.
She walks up the
walk
Like a
woman in a dream,
She forgets she
borrowed butter
And pays
you back cream!
Her lawn looks
like a meadow,
And if she
mows the place
She leaves the
clover standing
And the
Queen Anne's lace!
The Philosopher
And what are you
that, missing you,
I should be
kept awake
As many nights as
there are days
With
weeping for your sake?
And what are you
that, missing you,
As many
days as crawl
I should be
listening to the wind
And looking
at the wall?
I know a man
that's a braver man
And twenty
men as kind,
And what are you,
that you should be
The one man
in my mind?
Yet women's ways
are witless ways,
As any sage
will tell,--
And what am I,
that I should love
So wisely
and so well?
*************
from The Harp Weaver and Other Poems, 1922
(Pulitzer Prize,
1923)
My Heart, Being
Hungry
My heart, being
hungry, feeds on food
The fat of
heart despise.
Beauty where
beauty never stood,
And sweet
where no sweet lies
I gather to my
querulous need,
Having a growing
heart to feed.
It may be, when my
heart is dull,
Having
attained its girth,
I shall not find
so beautiful
The meagre
shapes of earth,
Nor linger in the
rain to mark
The smell of tansy
through the dark.
Departure
It's little I care
what path I take,
And where it leads
it's little I care;
But out of this
house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off
somewhere.
It's little I know
what's in my heart,
What's in my mind
it's little I know,
But there's that
in me must up and start,
And it's little I
care where my feet go.
I wish I could
walk for a day and a night,
And find me at
dawn in a desolate place
With never the rut
of a road in sight,
Nor the roof of a
house, nor the eyes of a face.
I wish I could
walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never
to stir again,
On a shore that is
wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy
rocks are bare to the rain.
But dump or dock,
where the path I take
Brings up, it's
little enough I care:
And it's little
I'd mind the fuss they'll make,
Huddled dead in a
ditch somewhere.
"Is something the matter, dear," she said,
"That you sit at your work so silently?"
"No, mother, no, 'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the kettle, I'll make the tea."
The Spring and the
Fall
In the spring of
the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road
beside my dear.
The trees were
black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in
the spring of the year.
He broke me a
bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of
the way and hard to reach.
In the fall of the
year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road
beside my dear.
The rooks went up
with a raucous trill.
I hear them still,
in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all
I dared to praise,
And broke my
heart, in little ways.
Year be springing
or year be falling,
The bark will drip
and the birds be calling.
There's much
that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a
year, in the fal |