Selected Poems: The Finest Lyric Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Premier American Lyricist

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

A magnificent anthology of the finest works of Edna St. Vincent Millay, perhaps the premier American lyricist of the twentieth century.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, American, Fiction, Female Authors, Anthologies, 20th Century

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work.

This famous portrait of Vincent (as she was called by friends) was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1933.

Reviews

[Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet not as one who never sojourned there
I view the lovely segments of a past
I lived with all my senses, well aware
That this was perfect, and it would not last . . .

Whenever I've come across individual poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay in classes or online I've always been impressed by them, so I decided I should make a more direct attempt to see what she's about. She's a bit out of fashion these days I think, though when I look her up I also see a lot of commentary decrying the fact that she's out of fashion, so who knows. I suspect that many have put her in a mental box with other early-20th-century American women like Willa Cather or Eudora Welty, with their dusty-sounding names and aversion to Modernist experimentation which we assume must make them dated and skippable.

But despite her preference for disciplined meters and rhymes, Millay was a brilliant poet with a daring and dramatic personal life: a combination which has made lesser artists into romantic heroes for the ages and in a just world would've done the same for her. A literary star while still a teenager, an icon of the Jazz Age, openly bisexual, an expat, a leftist, awash in affairs and scandals—even her sad end in a state of poverty and addiction would seem to make her life ripe for mythologizing. But maybe it's not the worst thing in the world that she's avoided the bad movies and squabbling biographers and hackneyed quotations and can remain a well-kept secret for those who do still know her and love her work.

Selected Poems showcases a sizeable cross-section of that work, with inclusions not only from all of her published poetry collections but also excerpts from plays and some translations of Baudelaire. I read what interested me and skipped what didn't, which turned out mostly to be the non-poems and some of her earlier long pieces. (Including "Renascence," published when she was just nineteen, which is apparently considered one of her best but which I found tedious.) Aside from these occasional skips, it was rare that I finished a poem here without at least pausing to admire a particular phrase or idea, and (for me at least) they only got richer the deeper in I got. Millay was an admirer of the likes of Shakespeare, Milton, and Keats, and—while this traditionalism made her unpopular with the Modernists—it also allowed her to develop, especially in her later years, the ability those earlier poets had of making almost every line into a thing of beauty which you can pluck out and admire on its own. If she was more widely read today you can bet authors would be plundering her phrases for book titles, the way they still do with Hamlet or The Waste Land.

When Millay is remembered it's often for her sardonic wit and bluntness about love and sexuality, or for sparky little poems like "First Figs" (a.k.a. "My candle burns at both ends"). It's a rep she earned, but I found those elements to be mostly concentrated at the beginning of her career, when the young Millay was writing sharply and pithily about hookups and breakups in a way that feels very appropriate to the swinging 1920s. She never lost that edge, but she does become a much different poet in her later decades, with death—especially the deaths of lovers and friends—as her great muse and major throughline. It was these stately and mature later poems, with their mastery of language and gut-punch revelations about grief and memory, that truly won me over to Millay. By the end of the collection almost every piece required a moment to take a breath and reflect:

Not only love plus awful grief,
The ardent and consuming pain
Of all who loved and who remain
To tend alone the buried brief
Eternal, propping laurel leaf
And frozen rose above the slain, —
But pity lest they die again
Makes of the mind an iron sheaf
Of bundled memories. Ah bright ghost,
Who shadow all I have and do,
Be gracious in your turn, be gone!
Suffice it that I loved you most.
I would be rid of even you,
And see the world I look upon.

Given this morbid streak and the unceremonious ending to her life which I mentioned before, you might expect that Millay's body of work would end bleakly too. I was happy to find that, based on these selections at least, it didn't. The very last pieces here do see her lamenting her inevitable end, but only because she's lived so well and isn't yet ready to give it all up. The very last poem here, Sonnet 175, starts with the approach of death ("If I die solvent—die, that is to say, / In full possession of my critical mind . . .") but ends with immortality, the confident assurance that this poet has dipped her cup in the same fountain "Where Shakespeare, Keats, Chaucer learned to drink."

For my part, I think she really did.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shame led me to read this book of poetry.

Here is how it went. Last November I read a blog post by Dave Cullen in which he pointed out the disparity between male and female authors receiving recognition. The column stuck with me. Fast-forward to last month as I mulled over what present to get my niece for her high school graduation. I bought her a new hardbound collegiate dictionary. But I also wanted to get her a work of prose or poetry to try out, something of proven literary merit.

My initial impulse, no lie, was to give her a copy of Childhood's End by the late Sci-fi master Arthur C. Clarke. I didn't feel shame about that. It's an excellent and thought-provoking novel I hope my niece does read sometime. But I realized I ought to do better than just toss her one of my "favs." I also felt a strong impulse that I should get her something by a female author. And that's when the shame hit.

Though I have read many books by women, I couldn't think of any works off the top of my head that would make good graduation gifts. The guilt began to flow when I realized that had my niece been a nephew, I could have easily listed a bevy of titles fit for any high school graduate to sample. Moreover, as the proud recipient of an English degree, I ought to be able list several female authors whose works are ideal for soon-to-be college freshman.

Then I remembered seeing the name Edna St. Vincent Millay on a friend's Goodreads Profile. So I grabbed one of Millay’s collections off the shelf at Borders Bookstore, read a couple poems in the store, and quickly bought the book. If it ended up not being appropriate for my niece, at least I would improve my own reading list.

In Millay's writing, I found poems about nature, companionship, assertiveness, and even wanderlust. I especially loved one passage where Millay said in effect that she wasn't satisfied with roses--either as a romantic gift or a subject for poetry. She prized more the vitality of real human interaction. At some point, I stopped reading to see if my niece might like Millay, and just enjoyed the poetry for myself.

My goal in giving my niece this collection was not to make her a Millay fan. If she becomes one, bonus! As a liberal arts junky I would also be tickled if she writes me this summer and says, “Uncle Jake, I did not enjoy Ms. Millay’s poetry for the following reasons…” I just wanted to extend her a sincere invitation to explore great literature as an avenue of personal development. And as she purchases books for school, most often written by men, I felt it important to make sure she starts out with a book on her shelf written by a great woman who succeeded on her own merits.

Most of the authors I read are men, and I make no apology for that. I like being a man and reading about the male experience. Not long ago I sat in a buddy's backyard and relished listening to him read masterfully the first paragraph of Moby Dick , a manly story indeed! But the strength in that work can be found in equal measure in the works of many female authors past and present. I thank Mr. Cullen and Ms. Millay for reminding me of that. But I also thank my niece.

[Kbrooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many poems I would like to print out on small cards, laminate, and then hand to every guy I've ever dated.

[Lew Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still haunted by "So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind..."

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a rock star poet in the pre-television 1920s and 30s. In an age where poets were commonly read, she was already famous at 18. Her readings, live and on the radio, drew huge audiences. It's hard to imagine this today. She's no longer widely read. But neither is poetry, sadly. This, the first volume of LOA's American Poet's Project, is a selection of poems that spans her long career. Don't let the formal structure of these sonnets and lyrics fool you, they're as irreverent and witty as any of today's more widely read modern poets. Probably better than most.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought a beautiful little 1929 leather bound book of Millay's poems this Saturday at the Allentown Book and Paper Show. The endpapers are pale spotted watercolor and the inside edge of the cover is bordered in a gold pattern. When you read the poems they are framed so lovely by it. The spine of this slim volume is raised in the traditional way. What a wonderful book! I read it through and savored every poem. Some it seemed were written just for me in that moment.

[Murphy C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't really read through and digested every poem in this extensive collection, but I will return to it someday. For now, I'm finished with the dense, sometimes devastating poetry of Millay. She really is one of the absolute greatest American poets.

[Lucy Hodgman · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you times union book sale

[Adia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
Millay is one of my favorite poets; only sonnet sequence i didn't like very much from this collection was 'Epitaph for the Race of Man'.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always nice to come back to a work you loved in your youth and realize it not only holds up but is better than you remember. E.S.V.M. is and always has been (and it seems always will be) my favorite poetess, mistress of the sonnet (my favorite type of poem) but also of every other form of poetry to which she puts her mind.

Young Me had excellent taste.

~~~~~~~~

"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,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory’s halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two."

[Bethany T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simply put, this collection is too lovely. It is not often a poet manages to break into my favorites list (Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost). I'm stubborn when it comes to poetry. I know that I like the poems of those three famous poets, so I refuse to venture away from them. Rupi Kaur managed to make it onto the list in recent years, and now Edna St. Vincent Millay has a spot there too. Her writing is so lyrical and lilting. Not every poem was a hit, but most were. Her nature-focused poems ended up being among my favorites.

My favorites:
- Witch-Wife
- First Fig
- Second Fig
- The Philosopher
- Spring
- Inland

Verdict
Highly recommend! Her shorter poems are so accessible and beautiful. Her writing is passionate and frank with a mix of hopefulness and hopelessness. Plus, she's a bisexual icon, and I bow down to her.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vincent's good with a phrase, certainly
But these were too antiquated for me
I can only read about so many trees and flowers
You can tell she wrote sheltered in her country-house hours
But when she goes dark, there's surprising wit
Her best verse is about death, I must admit

[Augustine St. Augustus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poetry of St. Vincent Millay, from what this collection has to offer, is the definition of simple yet effective, offering the reader glimpses into some of humanity’s most unavoidable toils in a lexis that is well-understood by most human beings with with hearts and souls—especially the American. Millay frequently wrote about the quaintness of nature and the evolving seasons that constantly brought new emotions and backgrounds to her already immense poetry, compounding even more layers atop her already fruitful and inspiring words.

Her poems cover unrequited and lost love, losing your lover by chance or by force, and loving nature and your fellow man despite the darkness that shrouds the earth at all times; such poems as the existential Renascence (my favorite) and the ‘Y’ section next to ‘Witch Wife’ both capture the almighty and emotional suffering of man and woman both, how we are only caught in time and there is truly no escaping.

This work is extremely admirable. Millay shows excellence with her sophisticated language and mastery by avoiding any pretentious or pseudo-intellectual themes, not writing poetry for poetry’s sake or milking it for aesthetic value; Millay found poetry everywhere and when she was inspired she wrote and she wrote with an immense acceptance similar to that of Walt Whitman, detailing American life in such a naturalistic manner that one cannot help but feel closer to the divine nature during and after reading these selected poems. I will provide a list of favorites:

Renascence
Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree
xxx from Fatal Interview
Cap d’Antibes
The Fawn
Sonnet
The Return

[Andi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a fascinating and mercurial individual, and her poetry reflects that. Though occasionally tending toward the maudlin, her verses contain a lot of sharp wit, biting angst, dark humor, and even, occasionally, a ray of hope. This is the perfect collection to brood with on a stormy day or when nursing a broken heart.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was chatting with an aspiring poet the other night, who couldn't understand why his poetry wasn't "good". It was earnest, it was simple. It rhymed. So what's missing?

There is a multi-fasceted and involved answer to this question, but usually the best answers lie with other poets and other poetry. I should have sent him to Millay.

I should have said study the multiplicity of metaphor in Never May The Fruit Be Plucked. Be awed by the singularity of vision and power behind Conscientious Objector. Know the estrangement and longing that sit themselves among the primary traits of advanced womanhood as she presents them to us in Assault and Wild Swans. And the very craft of verse that can hold fast to the beautiful truths in contradictions...
"My heart is warm with 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."
-last stanza from "Travel"

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authoritative and comprehensive collection of Edna St Vincent Millay’s poetry, with annotations by Timothy F Jackson, and with 2 introductory essays. For all lovers and students of her poetry.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, reading a really good book of poetry is very much like approaching a particularly appetizing smorgasbord — strolling about the table, sampling many items that look appealing, circulating further and seeking to acquire a comprehensive assessment of the entire feast; and finally re-visiting the table to pick out a few favorites that I can savor again, slowly. With this book, my plate was full to overflowing — I’ve probably overeaten but don’t regret having done so.
Millay’s favored themes are death, loss, introspection. And the compelling need to grasp life before it passes us by — most memorably expressed in “First Fig” p49
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light!
Even when discussing death, her work burgeons with vitality; writing about the loss of a loved one, as in “Interim” p10 and in “Elegy before Death” p26 her words are intensely reminiscent and deeply moving without ever becoming morose or maudlin.
Millay’s relationship with nature in all its manifestations permeates her work again and again. In “Wraith” p32 and in “Dawn” p117, the elements take on an active persona, completely dominating the piece, while in “The Snow Storm” p178 she treats us to gentle, elegant simplicity, reminiscent of Wordsworth. And in her exuberant “New England Spring”p210, nature’s presence is made real and immediate by a compelling sense of place, the maple woodlands of New England. Her encounters with nature — its moods, its cycles, its products — affect her deeply: in “Wine from These Grapes”p116, even death cannot erase the imprint of what has come before.
Whether plaintive, ironic or whimsical, most revelatory of ‘Vincent’ the person, the itinerant lover, are those poems that speak of loves (found, shared or lost): the deliciously droll “Rendezvous” p184 and “The Philosopher”p54; and especially the sonnets (“I shall forget you presently, my dear” p57). In “The Fitting”p185, Millay captures the mood of an everyday event and turns it into a disarmingly earthy vignette.
The final stanza of “Not So Far as the Forest” on p183 concludes with:
Rebellious bird, warm body foreign and bright,
Has no one told you? — Hopeless is your flight
Towards the high branches. Here is your home,
Between the barnyard strewn with grain and the forest tree.
Though Time refeathers the wing
Ankle slip the ring,
The once confined thing
Is never free again.
That may well sum up Millay’s perception of herself, her spirit. Or perhaps that was just how she perceived her condition at that moment.
And every once in a while, Millay turns the tables on us: “Murdered Woman” p161 is a shocking piece presented without comment — a challenge for any reader who (like me) has not read Beaudelaire.
A unique characteristic of Millay’s work is what I might call “sexual mobility” (not ambiguity!) — an ability to place herself seamlessly into any POV she chooses. She is equally convincing when speaking in a man’s voice or a woman’s voice and at times can subtly leave gender behind altogether; hers is the voice of humanity.
I had greatly enjoyed Nancy Milford's biography of Millay Savage Beauty and now belatedly discover the origin of Milford's title in "Assault" p29. How elegantly appropriate!
Millay’s poetry is a refreshing rebuke to the dreadful postmodernist stuff that gets published today. It’s mercifully accessible, which surely accounts for it having remained popular seventy years after her death. She demonstrates that poetry need not be opaque and impenetrable in order to be profound. The introduction by Holly Peppe in this edition greatly enhances Millay’s work by placing it in context of the period between the wars when most of the best of it was written.
I applaud Timothy Jackson’s annotation — insightful snippets about Millay’s writing process and some of her possible influences, while letting us make up our own minds about each poem, interpret the work in our own way.
A thoroughly enjoyable collection.
Further thoughts ...
Before reluctantly returning this volume to the library, I couldn't resist strolling through it one more time and experienced once again how intensely personal Millay's poems are, how piercingly they reveal her own life experiences and her view if life. in "Never May the Fruit Be Plucked" she proclaims that
He that would eat of love may bear away with him
Only what his belly can hold,
Nothing in the apron,
Nothing in the pockets
Similarly, in many of her sonnets, such as "Pity me not because the light of day" she reveals a fatalism without regret. And yet, in "Dirge Without Music" like Dylan Thomas, she is not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground .... I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Each new reading of her work reveals more treasures.

[Mary Rose Fissinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely!

Reverent, cynical, funny, sincere.

—

Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn

—

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?

—

After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?

—

Such hope is mine, if this indeed be true,
I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My anguish, into something I can bear.

—

"Wolf!" cried my cunning heart
At every sheep it spied,
And roused the countryside.

"Wolf! Wolf!"—and up would start
Good neighbours, bringing spade
And pitchfork to my aid.

At length my cry was known:
Therein lay my release.
I met the wolf alone
And was devoured in peace.

—

This
I know: that what I hear
Is a thrush; and very near,
Almost on the sill of my open window, close to my ear.
I was startled, but I made no motion, I knew
What I had to do —stop breathing, not be
Here at all, and I have accomplished this. He has not yet known
Anything about me; he is singing very loud
And with leisure: he is all alone.

—

Few come this way; not that the darkness
Deters them, but they come
Reluctant here who fear to find,
Thickening the darkness, what they left behind
Sucking its cheeks before the fire at home,
The palsied Indecision from whose dancing head Precipitately they fled, only to come again
Upon him here,
Clutching at the wrist of Venture with a cold
Hand, aiming to fall in with him, companion
Of the new as of the old.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few very nice poems in this collection, but overall I was not taken with it. Millay's poetry has a romantic, flowery, dated quality to it that did not appeal to my sensibility. Granted, I am out of touch with poetry in general, since I do not read much of it. Perhaps I am being a little unfair in portraying her as a flowery, dated poet; there was something modern in her work, and certainly in her life. She was known for her Greenwich Village boho lifestyle and her liaisons with men like Edmund Wilson. Perhaps the way I had to read it - hurriedly, over the course of a few days for a course - affected my reading of it.

N.B. This collection was edited by Colin Falck and published by Harper Collins in 1991. I wanted to add that to the database, but it appears that I am not permitted to do that.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 1 out of 5]

Denna var väldigt mycket inte min smak. Pratig, onödigt pratig, och utan varesig symboldjup eller begriplighet, så gott jag kunde se. Jag fick rekommendationen av en bekant som tidigare givit goda tips, men nej, just denna föll mig inte i smaken.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

…all of my late
Enchantments, still, in brilliant colours, shine,
But striped with black, the tulip, lawn and vine,
Like gardens looked at through an iron gate.
Yet not as one who never sojourned there
I view the lovely segments of a past
I lived with all my senses, well aware
That this was perfect, and it would not last:
I smell the flower, though vacuum-still the air;
I feel its texture, though the gate is fast.

I started to read these poems, and was struck by a feral, joyful tone accompanying the stereotypical angry, obsessive passion poems, and ended up reading a biography, so see Savage Beauty for more about the poet. I had loved her poem, AFTERNOON ON A HILL, for a long time; but when I tried to read her before, I was so annoyed by her immature views on love and joy and happiness, I gave up. But I found some gems, and was in awe of her versatility. She would write a sonnet to a lover in a letter! And it would be stunning.

Mary Oliver was influenced by Millay, and I can see the strains in Millay of what I feel Oliver mastered: the soaring elation of what it feels like to be in a present moment with your heart and soul alive.

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.
…
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.

AFTERNOON ON A HILL
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

GODS' 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.

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.


FOR PAO-CHIN, A BOATMAN ON THE YELLOW SEA
Where is he now…
Sculling his sampan home, and night approaching fast –
The red sail hanging wrinkled on the bamboo mast;
Where is he now, I shall remember my whole life long
With love and praise, for the sake of a small song
Played on a Chinese flute?
I have been sad;
I have been in cities where the song was all I had, --
A treasure never to be bartered by the hungry days.
Where is he now, for whom I carry in my heart
This love, this praise?

ELEGY
Let them bury your big eyes
In the secret earth securely,
Your thin fingers, and your fair,
Soft, indefinite-colored hair,—
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;
Not for these I sit and stare,
Broken and bereft completely;
Your young flesh that sat so neatly
On your little bones will sweetly
Blossom in the air.

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;
But your singing days are done;
But the music of your talk
Never shall the chemistry
Of the secret earth restore.
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.

I MUST NOT DIE OF PITY
I must not die of pity; I must live;
Grow strong, not sicken; eat, digest my food,
That it may build me, and in doing good
To blood and bone, broaden the sensitive
Fastidious pale perception: we contrive
Lean comfort for the starving, who intrude
Upon them with our pots of pity: brewed
From stronger meat must be the broth we give.
Blue, bright September day, with here and there
On the green hills a maple turning red,
And white clouds racing in the windy air! —
If I would help the weak, I must be fed
In wit and purpose, pour away despair
And rinse the cup, eat happiness like bread.

THE ANGUISH
I would to God I were quenched and fed
As in my youth
From the flask of song, and the good bread
Of beauty richer than truth.
The anguish of the world is on my tongue.
My bowl is filled to the brim with it; there is more than I can eat.
Happy are the toothless old and the toothless young,
That cannot rend this meat

WHEN THE YEAR GROWS OLD
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.

ALMS
My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go…

WILD SWANS
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;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

AUTUMN CHANT
Beauty never slumbers;
All is in her name;
But the rose remembers
The dust from which it came.

DIRGE WITHOUT MUSIC
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

LETHE
Ah, drink again
This river that is the taker-away of pain
And the giver-back of beauty!

In these cool waves
What can be lost?
Only the sorry cost
Of the lovely thing, ah, never the thing itself!

The level flood that laves The hot brow
And the stiff shoulder
Is at our temples now

Gone is the fever
But not into the river;
Melted the frozen pride
But the tranquil tide
Runs never the warmer for this
Never the colder

Immerse the dream
Drench the kiss
Dip the song in the stream

INVITATION TO THE VOYAGE
We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendour hung,—
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep. —
Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

THE KING OF THE RAINY COUNTRY
A rainy country this, that I am monarch of,—
Of him, along whose veins, where flows no blood at all,
For ever the slow waters of green Lethe crawl.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection!

[Kayla Dae Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of my favorite poets work so there is not much to say, I liked it a lot. Millay's writing is so accessible and the mundane becomes magical in her use of language and rhyme. If you're someone that isn't sure you like poetry I would recommend trying this one.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The best of Millay's virtuoso sonnets and short lyrics in a selection that spans her entire career." (from the back cover) Indeed, the American Poets Project selection of Millay's poetry includes the best of Renascence and Other Poems (such as "Afternoon on a Hill"), A Few Figs from Thistles (such as "First Fig"), Second April (such as "Alms"), The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (such as "Autumn Chant"), The Buck in the Snow (such as "To Inez Milholland"), The King's Henchman , Wine from These Grapes (such as "The Solid Sprite Who Stands Alone"), Conversation at Midnight , Huntsman, What Quarry? (such as "Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!"), Make Bright the Arrows (such as "Make bright the arrows"), The Murder of Lidice ("They marched them out to the public square"), and Mine the Harvest (such as "For Warmth Alone, for Shelter Only")...

I will be the gladdest thing
 Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
 And not pick one.
 - Afternoon on a Hill (from Renascence and Other Poems)

My candle burns at both ends;
 It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
 It gives a lovely light! 
 - First Fig (from A Few Figs from Thistles)

There was a time I stood and watched
 The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
 I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight;
 Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
 My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
 I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, - and the birds
 May take or leave them, as they will.
 - Alms (from Second April)

Beauty never slumbers;
 All is in her name;
But the rose remembers
 The dust from which it came.
 - Autumn Chant (from The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems)

Upon this marble busy that is not I
Lay the tound, formal wreath that is not fame;
But in the forum of my silenced cry
Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.
I, that was proud and valiant, am not more; -
Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.
Only my standard on a taken hill
Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust
And make immortal my adventurous will.
Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.
 - To Inez Milholland (from The Buck in the Snow)

Who lie among my tears and rust,
 And all because a mortal brain
That loved to think, is clogged with dust,
 And will not think again.
 - The Solid Sprite Who Stands Alone (from Wine from These Grapes)

"Fountain," I have cried to that unbubbling well, "I will
 not drink of thy water!" Yet I thirst
For a mouthful of - not to swallow, only to rinse my
 mouth in - peace. And while the eyes of the past condemn,
The eyes of the present narrow into assignation.
 And . . . worst . . .
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers
 crossed; I shall get no help from them. 
 - "Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!" (from Huntsman, What Quarry?)

Make bright the arrows,
 Gather the shields:
Conquest narrows
 The peaceful fields.

Stock well the quiver
 With arrows bright:
The bowmen feared
 Need never fight.

Make bright the arrows,
 O peaceful and wise!
Gather the shields
 Against surprise.
 - "Make bright the arrows" (from Make Bright the Arrows)

They marches them out to the public square,
Two hundred men in a row;
And every step of the distance there,
Each stone in the road, each man did know,
And every alley and doorway where
As a carefree boy, not long ago,
With boys of his age he would hide and run
And shout, in the days when everyone
Was safe, and free, and school was out . . .
Not very long ago . . .
And he felt on his face the soft June air,
And thought, "This cannot be so!"
 - "They marched them out to the public square" (from The Murder of Lidice)

For warmth alone, for shelter only
From the cold anger of the eyeless wind,
That knows my whereabouts, and mainly 
To be at your door when I go down
Is abroad at all tonight in town,
I left my phrase in air, and sinned,
Laying my head against your arm
A moment, and as suddenly
Withdrawing it, and sitting there,
Warmed a little but far from warm,
And the wind still waiting at the foot of the stair,
And much harm done, and the phrase in the air.
 - For Warmth Alone, for Shelter Only (from Mine the Harvest)

The selection also includes the complete texts of Aria da Capo and Fatal Interview , along with Millay's translations of Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil ...

COLUMBINE: Pierrot, a macaroon,—I cannot live without a macaroon!
PIERROT: My only love, You are so intense! . . . Is it Tuesday, Columbine?— I'll kiss you if it's Tuesday.
COLUMBINE: It is Wednesday, If you must know. . . . Is this my artichoke Or yours?
PIERROT: Ah, Columbine, as if it mattered! Wednesday. . . . Will it be Tuesday, then, to-morrow, By any chance? . . .
 - Aria da Capo

What thing is this that, built of salt and lime
And such dry motes as in the sunbeam show,
Has power upon me that do daily climb
The dustless air? - for whom those peaks of snow
Whereup the lungs of man with borrowed breath
Go labouring to a doom I may not feel,
Are but a pearled and roseate plain beneath
My winged helmet and my winged heal.
What sweet emotions neither foe nor friend
Are these that clog my flight? what thing is this
That hastening headlong to a dusty end
Dare turn upon me these proud eyes of bliss?
Up, up, my feathers! - ere I lay you by
To journey barefoot with a mortal joy.
 - Fatal Interview, I

All this was long ago, but I do not forget
One small white house, between the city and the farms;
The Venus, the Pomona, - I remember yet
How in the leaves they hid their chipping plaster charms;
And the majestic sun at evening, setting late,
Behind the pane that broke and scattered his bright rays,
How like an open eye he seemed to contemplate
Our long and silent dinners with a curious gaze:
The while his golden beams, like tapers burning there,
Made splendid the serge curtains and the simple fare.
 - A Memory (from Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil)

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Time cannot break the bird’s wing from the bird.
Bird and wing together
Go down, one feather.

No thing that ever flew,
Not the lark, not you,
Can die as others do."

1 Sentence Summary: A collection of poems written by Edna St. Vincent Millay throughout her life.

My Thoughts: As always with poetry collections, it was kind of a mixed bag. Some poems I liked, and some I didn’t. This type of poetry is more old-fashioned and a bit hard to understand/boring at times. I did notice that a lot of her poems focus on death and loss of loved ones. Included in this collection was the one-act play Aria da Capo she wrote, which I actually loved. It’s dark and funny and satirical and you kind of have to read it a couple times to get what’s going on. Overall, I enjoyed this collection of poetry.

Recommend to: Fans of more old-fashioned poetry.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have always loved Edna St. Vincent Millay's "My candle burns at both ends..." So when a reading challenge required that I read a book by someone who shared a first name with one of my grandparents, this seemed like a good choice. I generally don't read books of poetry, but I do enjoy poetry. Unfortunately I was terribly disappointed in these poems. They are petulant and mawkish. Many sound like something a young girl would write dealing with lost love. There are some nice phrases: "Unremembered as old rain" was one I particularly liked. But overall, none of the poems really spoke to me or made me think I had seen anything in a new light. But maybe that's because most of the selected poems are so dark.

[Elia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who doesn't love First Fig?:

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

But my favorite Millay poem (so far) is actually Modern Declaration. Otherwise I haven't found that many poems here that I come back to, but I have the same attitude towards books of poetry that I have towards cook books, if just one poem (or recipe) in a book becomes yours then the book has earned its price of admission.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was filled with beautiful passages and stunning talent. There were a few pieces in the collection that I didn't care for, such as the Aria Da Capo, but I liked the rest of them enough to buy the book so that I can re-read it. It astounds me that someone could take words and arrange them in such a way that they cut and cry. If you aren't familiar with metrical poetry, I would recommend trying this collection as a gentle introduction. I had no idea that she was famous at such a young age! It is incredible to me that Renascence was written while she was a teenager.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is the first full book of poetry I've read. I really liked it at first (Renascence and Love is Not All were my favorites), but I didn't care for how her style changed through the years and I had to force myself to finish the book. I think I prefer reading poetry in small doses.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think you know what Millay is all about, you don't know what Millay is all about. Read her often!