The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s childhood was a life of transient poverty. Her mother Cora, who was separated for many years from, and finally divorced in 1904, her father Henry Tolman Millay, moved Edna and her two sisters constantly from town to town during their upbringing. The family would finally settle in a small house on the property of Cora’s aunt in Camden, Maine. It was here that Edna would write some of her first lines of poetry. Edna would first gain notoriety when her 1912 poem “Renascence” garnered a fourth place prize in a poetry contest for “The Lyric Year”. Edna would go on to win the highest prize for poetry, the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, for her work “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”. Noted for its lyrical beauty and at times controversial depiction of female sexuality, the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay marks some of the best of the early 20th century. Contained in this volume are some of her most important works: “Renascence and Other Poems,” “A Few Figs From Thistles,” “Second April,” and “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver.”

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Feminism, American, Fiction, Literature, Adult

82 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 28, 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

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like Edna St. Vincent can SLAY am I right!?

But for real, this pioneering and queer icon of American poetry delivers a paragon of prose across a sublimity of stanzas. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize—being not only the first woman to ever receive it but the second person ever—for her poem The Ballad of the Harp Weaver (read it HERE) and Frost Medal for a lifetime achievement in poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay was well regarded in her own time for her art as much as she was a well-known social figure and feminist activist. Not only a writer of great poems, she was also commissioned to write the opera The Kings Henchman and published three plays in verse. One of which, The Lamp and the Bell, was an openly and boldly sapphic work published in 1921. A masterful writer who’s works still endure and endear today.

Sonnet XV
Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu, — farewell! — the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The colour 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.

I must confess every year when Spring comes around I think of her lines ‘To what purpose, April, do you return again? / Beauty is not enough.’ She had an incredible knack for wonderful turns of phrase, both in poetry and in social life with zingers like ‘I love humanity but I hate people.’ Even though she was largely awarded and praised, such as critic Harriet Monroe having called her ‘the greatest woman poet since Sappho’ her reputation is often more discussed than her art. A well-known socialite who frequented parties, Edna was a hot scandalous topic in her day for being openly bisexual, an ardent feminist, and having a period of morphine addiction. As a person with a large public persona, she would use it to bring her poetry to the world. After marrying Eugen Boissevain in 1923, he set aside his career and focused on hers, becoming her “manager” of sorts and organizing many public appearances and readings which would lead to her enduring fame. Her work lives on today, particularly her sonnets such as this, ‘>What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’ largely considered her most well known work:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Time is the omnipresent theme across her works, the way the days forever push forward as dust and decay overtakes even the most beautiful aspects of the present. In this way flowers are a frequent metaphor, the dropping of pedals marking the hours and days as time ebbs away from us all. Yet even while acknowledging this truth of time and death, her works are a rebellion against it as well:

‘I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.’

Even looking death in the face she gives us nothing but beauty and we see how lasting prose is a form of immortality in a world where everything must one day vanish:

‘when you, that at this moment are to me
dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
and be no more the warder of my heart,
whereof again myself shall hold the key;
and be no more-what now you seem to be-
the sun, from which all excellences start
in a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;
i shall remember only of this hour-
and weep somewhat, as now you see me weep-
the pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
the wind whereon its petals shall be laid.’

Grief and loss also nestle themselves into many of her works, riding shotgun with the passage of time to bring grief but also see if fade with the hours as well. She points our attention to how the world is a beautiful place full of wondrous moments, but it is often the tragedy that we only realize the gifts and glory of life in hindsight. In this way memory looms large over these works and through her poems we too, remember her.

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.
In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
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.

The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay is as fantastic as she is fascinating as an icon. One detail about her legacy I’ve always loved is that poet Mary Oliver worked in her estate, which was where she would meet her partner Molly Malone Cook. It was a passing of both the sapphic and poetic torch and I love that. I also love these poems and hope you do too.

5/5

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!

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorrow
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, —
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.

American poet, playwright, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner and feminist activism, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was an influence on another poet I find utterly fascinating. "I was following in the exquisite footsteps of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers," Dorothy Parker wittily lamented once, according to an article published on BBC Culture. All things considered, I just had to take a look at Millay's work.
This collection mostly includes poems from Renascence and Other Poems, A Few Figs from Thistles, and Second April.

May 20, 19

I think my expectations were too high. I prefer Parker, undoubtedly. Even though certain themes are timeless and the raison d'être of poetry, everything felt more repetitive in Millay's verse, especially considering a somewhat dramatic tone that I often find difficult to overlook. Additionally, I'm not fond of poems that occupy four pages; paraphrasing Poe, such length is the antithesis of poetry's nature. Paraphrasing this humble reader, my attention span simply dies. There were some poems whose traditional structure made me yearn for the last line. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to connect with most of them. I did, however, appreciate her playful rhymes; without such musicality, I would have never finished the entire collection.


May 25, 19
* Later on my blog.

[Rowena · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were lovely poems, pleasant to read and with easy interpretations. Some of her poems about death had a very Sylvia Plath feel to them. Most of the poems had nature elements. She described her love for the great outdoors in great detail. I want to go run around in a meadow now :)

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time reading anything by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and this collection of poems was more than enough to get a good sense of what she was all about. Lots of Variety in the poems, including the afterlife and nature, and she captured various moods that shifted about as I worked my way through.

The Sonnets were the highlight for me,
but some other favourites were -

The Dream
Journey
Elegy Before Death
Song of a Second April
Alms
The Little Hill
Exiled
The Poet and his Book
Ode to Silence

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything in life seems to me to be ephemeral, always passing, changing, transforming. Nothing stays the same, nothing lasts. We live in a very narrow slice of infinity, and in our mind we explode every moment of that slice to something enormous, something of incomprehensible significance. We analyze every glance and turn of phrase, we plan our days and weeks and months and five-year plans, and our retirements which we may never reach. We are always sad to let things go, it does not come naturally to us. We cling and hold fast to the things we love, even cling to pains that have become dull, for fear of new, harsher hands which may play upon us. And yet we paradoxically love the idea of new things. New cars, and the excitement of new romances and new cities, travels to new places, discovering new books. "Death is the mother of beauty" said Wallace Stevens, which is to say that nothing beautiful is eternal, that we are only moved by the knowledge that what is will never be the same again. Like a photograph caging a moment of beauty into something of forever, so to does a poem capture that slice of dying Time forever.

For Edna St. Vincent Millay, there is perhaps no god in her poetry if not the omnipotence and unconquerable god of Time. She is acutely aware of the passing of time, of the passing of loves, the passing of moments, like ships at sea. As soon as a moment buds, it has stepped closer to decay. As soon as a love is forged, it is one day closer to rust. This seems to be a very cynical view of the world, that all is always dying, that nothing lasts, and nothing is certain but death and ruin. But aren't we moved by ruins? We are not moved by cities, not by skyscrapers nor apartment buildings which climb high into the sky and bustle with inmates and house-cats going about their dailies. What moves us are the ruins past, where no one lives, the Pompeiis of the world which echo with ghosts, of unsolved mysteries and goings-on which have long been dulled by the crawl and recession of time. Like sand on the beach always being drawn away, inch by inch, so too does time pull back on the present, transforming it into the past. What once was ugly to us becomes beautiful in the nostalgic distances of the past - for it was always beautiful, but beauty requires distance. If the only paradises are paradises lost, then too are the only beauties lost beauties. Millay is hyper aware of the beauty in passing things, in transient things, in dying things.

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.

We hear recurrent in Ms. Millay's poetry this seeming ambivalence towards loss and grief, this acceptance that the best things of yesterday have already depreciated immeasurably in time. She knows that we don't appreciate beauty when it is present, beauty "buds, blooms" when "nothing matters" - when we can't appreciate it, when it is too close, when we take it for granted, when we are still aspiring for better. And it shatters before we even see that we were happy. We are much better at grief than gratitude. So much beauty goes unseen by us because we do not give it attention, we do not think of our happiness; but we are wallowers in grief. Grief seems to us an ocean; happiness, beauty, a lightning-flash. We are comforted by the endless vastness of the oceans of grief, their expected tempos and waves of emotion, which threaten imminently to topple us over, to wreck us. We see the flashes of beauty only peripherally, we never seem to catch them head-on, we are never ready with our cameras, and even when we do they never seem quite right captured. We look back on moments of great beauty, and think they "must have been very pretty" - but we did not think so when we had them, when our rose bushes were blooming just outside our windows, on days we kept the windows shut so that bees wouldn't come in, or the wind wouldn't disrupt the pages on our desks. Yes, they must've been very pretty.

Perhaps the cruelest truth in love, in beauty, is that we withhold it from ourselves. We are citadels of grief, keeping out happiness, and hemming ourselves in with our evasions and defenses. We do not want to risk being struck by lightning. We do not take chances, we vouchsafe our lives to the wavering seas of time, bobbing up and down like corks on the waves, never secured in our happiness, but never, too, sunk completely, always in flux. We hurt ourselves with our own pride, we refuse to be subservient to the idea of love, we champion ourselves as worthy of love, but hold ourselves too highly. We never give up our whole hearts, and so instead we lose them piece by piece.

Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart,"
'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear,
'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece;
And thus as well my love must lose some part
Of what it is, had Helen been less fair,
Or perished young, or stayed at home in Greece.

While this is a lovely collection, to anyone interested in Millay's poetry, I would rather recommend her Collected Poems, as they include a broader selection of her poetry, and more specifically consolidate all (or at least most of) Millay's sonnets, which are her strongest and most poignant.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have great difficulties with poetry. At first, it was because I was a member of the "roll your eyes and hold your nose" contingent as regarded pretty much the entire art form. Except Shakespeare, don't you know, because I was a cultured little thing, and well- how couldn't I? That reason changed when all of a sudden, I encountered a poet I loved. And irony of ironies, he was one of the major roll your eyes poets even for people who could enjoy poetry- Byron. I just loved it- but it didn't have anything to do with appreciation for craft. I connected to it on a deeply selfish, personal level- so much of his writing is so appropriate for teenagers. I could just live in his ridiculous yearnings and affectations, because they were mine as well- even if I was embarrassed for him, I recognized so much of it in myself. From there I loved Shelley, I loved Tennyson, I loved pieces of Dickinson here and there. But I was very very picky, very dependent on transient moods, and a very very unsophisticatd reader of poetry- and that's the stage that I remain at today. I'm very capable of scornfully laughing something out the door without a second thought that I would have loved yesterday, and I even do this to my favorites. I am cruel to poets- for some reason, I'm willing to give novelists and playwrights a lot more leeway.

Which is probably why I'm somewhat conflicted about my feelings on Edna St. Vincent Millay. This particular edition chronicles her juvenalia into the writings of approaching (what was for the time) middle age. I had expected to grow with her and like her writings progressively more as she went along- but I did not find that to be the case. I loved her first collection of works, Resanance and Other Poems,, some of them written in her teens, and published before she was in her mid-twenties. "Resanance," exactly suited my mood- the story of a troubled girl on a seemingly perfectly innocuous day who imagines herself dead to escape the world... but cannot ultimately face the prospect. It was perfect for what I needed- an expression of incredible love for life, someone depressed enough to want to die, but too enthralled with life to be able to. Like in that Fellini film- with the girl at the end who has just been fucked over by life and men again and you think she's going to do something awful to herself... but then there are these kids playing, and she's smiling. Corny, but I love it, and I needed that. I also loved "Interim," the story of the survivors of death and clash of the Big Ideas and Facts of Life with the everyday mundane and how ridiculous it seems to do /anything/ that isn't epic when such things have happened to you. She has many other poems along these lines, and I adored all of them, even if they were just smaller echoes of things that had been expressed before.

By contrast, I really did not like the majority of Second April. Millay definitely always had a flower child sensibility about her (despite being raised in the 'teens, not the sixties). And I mean this very literally as at least half her poems mention flowers in some way, and if its not flowers, she's marveling about some other wonder of nature. Now, I have no problem with this generally, and sometimes I find it very sweet. There's a poem called Exile that is really about nothing else but the yearning for home- all she wants is to smell the water again. I can appreciate that.

However- Second April feels like a girl who got too high on herself and went to Greenwich Village, and wrote poems to impress the people there with how rebellious and idealistic and well educated (waaaay up with the classical references in this one) she was. It did not feel geniune in the least. Even her nature poems often felt twee- like she was looking for the wonder she was once able to write with, and not able to find it. I can understand this to a certain degree, and I'm certainly at an age where I can still remember that- but I don't admire it, I shudder to think of it, and being embarrassed for it isn't helping me appreciate it more. I can understand it in a distant, historical context way- WWI had just ended, the atmosphere was thick with political statements and heady with the sorrow that lead to jazz age ridiculousness. It just feels like a pose of a girl- or a girl too stereotypical for me to even want to know.

A Few Figs was better, quieter, more consistent. Less with the references to being out all night, more of a return to the subjects that first fascinated her. Still a bit more pretentious, but I'll let that pass. After all, I do like Byron, and she does harken back to 19th century styles to a certain degree.

Actually, I think that's my favorite part about Edna St. Vincent Millay. Perhaps this is to do with one of my historical fascinations (the echoes of the Old World that always linger), but I love how she's one of the writers straddling the old world and the new- the techniques of the Victorian era were still being taught, still being revered, and yet, entirely modern sentiments were being expressed in "thees" and "thous," that clank up against your ear in a startling and charming way, being used to say things that one has trouble believing they would ever intend to express. I just loved the sound of it, the spirit of it, and that gave me another way into understanding it.

I will revisit several of these poems again- they are inspiring, with beautiful images to hold onto and remember when they are needed. Thank you to everyone who recommended this collection to me.

[Joshie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always been fond of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnets. It all started with Love Is Not All one evening whilst looking for something to read before going to bed. I knew then I had to seek more of her works. This sonnet is not included in this collection however but the ones that are have strengthened that fondness by a mile. To discover she was openly bisexual also sheds a new light upon her works; subtly some of them hints on same-sex relationships. Regrettably, I find rhyming poetry a little tiring these days that amidst her playfulness, creativity, sarcasm, humour, and wit — whilst fastening a lot of themes within the breaks and spaces between her vivid words enough to draw a memory or evoke a sense of a thousand emotions be it the departure of autumn, death at your fingertips ("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!") or the painful warfare of longing ("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;" and "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.") and a heartbreak ("My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love, The Sashes are beset with snow." and "And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake?") — has turned off my enjoyment overall. Despite this personal gripe of mine there's no question hers are one of the best rhyming poetry I've read so far in comparison to W.H. Auden's whose poetry collection I haven't finished yet due to them being twice as taxing although Funeral Blues and O Tell Me The Truth About Love (funny little thing how this one involves nose-picking) have always been my personal favourites.

For all of us ageing:
"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?"
— GROWN-UP

As a side note, I dearly liked these: Indifference, Time does not bring relief; you all have lied, If I should learn, in some quite casual way, The Dream, I shall forget you presently, my dear, MacDougal Street, Passer Mortuus Est, Travel, Exiled, Grown-up, Recuerdo, Thursday, Ebb, We all talk of taxes, and I call you friend, Alms, and I know I am but summer to your heart.

[Patrick Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because I came across a snippet of one of Millay's poems somewhere (can't remember now of course):

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!


When I read this, I swamped with work, correcting papers, and choreographing/directing a musical. And those four little lines managed to make me nod my head, smile to myself, and think, "Oh yes. I know exactly what she means." So of course, I scurried over to my library and picked up a selection of Millay's poems.

Of course, not all of the poems spoke to me, but many of them did. I don't usually read a book of poetry from cover to cover, but I had no problem with this little volume. In fact, I forced myself to read it slowly so that I'd have time to savor and reflect on each poem.

For fans of poetry, I'd recommend this--there are definitely some gems in here.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Millay is one of my favorite poets, and this is actually a book I bought for my daughter, but I picked it up and read from it while waiting for my library hold to become available. It's a lovely selection of her work, starting with the famous Renascence, through First Fig, Second Fig, Recuerdo, and so on - it also includes many sonnets.

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

The summer-upper

I read a couple pages of poetry every morning. I find I cannot simply read a book of poetry from cover to cover as I would a novel. After reading a few poems, I lose the ability to appreciate them. I need to let them bounce around in the back of my head for a while to get them. Because I read only a page or two a day, I favor "selected poetry" books like this Dover Thrift publication. In this way I hope to read a poet's best work over the course of a month or two.

The problem with this strategy, of course, is that it puts me at the mercy of the person doing the selecting. For instance, my favorite Millay poem Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare, is not included in this collection

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

OK, fine. Obviously I had already read that one.

Judging by this collection I would imagine that most of Millay's poetry concerned the hackneyed poetic themes of romantic love and nature. I do not, however, know if that's Millay's or Digireads' limitation. The poem I quoted above would suggest a greater range. Indeed, such wider interests are not absent from this selection.

Now, while I referred to romantic love and nature as hackneyed themes, I want to add that Millay's poems on these themes are NOT hackneyed. When Millay writes about nature, she writes as one who really sees it, all of it, not just flowers and trees. For instance, one of her poems is about "Eel-grass". Her love poetry is also distinctive. Millay doesn't write of eternal love. Indeed, in her poems love is a fleeting thing. Not casual -- never that -- but she expects it to end, and although she laments when it does, one feels transience is part of what makes love what it is to her.

Millay's poems end well. Most of her poems end with a powerful, concise, quotable summing up. When I was eleven my family moved from a house near the Atlantic to an inland home. Around that time I read Millay's poem "Exiled", which ends with these two lines

I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.

It was what I felt. This is one of the things I look for in poetry -- words that express what I feel.

Blog review.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really not all that great with poetry yet. I think that if I know enough about a poet's personal life that I will have a better appreciation for their poetry. This may or may not be true, but this is sort of my first experience of trying that out, reading two biographies about Millay while reading this selection of poetry on the side.

Knowing more about the author helps in one way - I know what was going on when she wrote certain poems, how old she was, possibly what was going on in the world (though most of her poems had more to do with herself than anything else, until later in her years). On the flip-side of the same coin, knowing more about the author hurt in some ways - I knew what she was writing as she got on in years, what she was doing to herself and her body, her obsessions with certain people - all of which likely took its toll on her writing.

When you look at the first poem in this selection, "Renascence" [sic], and you read it with the knowledge that she was 19 when she wrote it, you have a greater appreciation for the skill and genius of Millay. I'd give five stars to that poem alone. But as she got older, that genius just wasn't there in the same way. I attribute that mainly to her addiction - there's no way that being on as much morphine as she was in her later years (compounded by the excess of alcohol she drank and the slew of other medications she put in her body) didn't affect her mind. This is evidenced in Nancy Milford's Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay where her time spent detoxing in hospitals were written in great detail.

Her poetry in later in years was hit-or-miss for me. Some of them are lovely, but others tend to ramble and be vague and essentially uninteresting.

However, she led a difficult and often sad life, and that does come across in her writing, for better or for worse. At times in a selection like this it starts to drag a bit, and that's even when I would read only one or two poems an evening before picking up where I left off in one or both of the biographies. Some of her poems are so short that it's easy to read a couple of pages and wind up having read four poems.

Not the worst poetry I've read, and there are one or two of pure genius ("Renascence" being probably one of my all-time new favorite poems EVAH), but the rest left me feeling probably as cold as her insides felt on all that freaking morphine.

[hope h. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've been working through this collection of selected works for a while now (since i bought it at a bookstore in maine in october, also millay's home state!), choosing to just keep it in my bag at all times and read it whenever the inspiration struck. this really proved to be the best way to do it because not only do i really adore millay's poetry but i also started reading more into her life and have found her to be an incredibly fascinating person which makes her poetry all the better.

she ranges through a TON of styles and moods in her work, but i found that her sonnets were unequivocally my favorite as a collection, although many of her standalone works stood out to me as well. my favorite from the entire book was interim, which is multiple pages long so i won't put it here but if you haven't read it, go give it a read right now - you won't regret it.

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!
and her voice is a string of colored beads,
or steps leading into the sea.

she loves me all that she can,
and her ways to my ways resign;
but she was not made for any man,
and she never will be all mine.

assault

i had forgotten how the frogs must sound
after a year of silence, else i think
i should not have ventured forth alone
at dusk upon this unfrequented road.

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!

when you, that at this moment are to me

when you, that at this moment are to me
dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
and be no more the warder of my heart,
whereof again myself shall hold the key;
and be no more-what now you seem to be-
the sun, from which all excellences start
in a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;
i shall remember only of this hour-
and weep somewhat, as now you see me weep-
the pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
the wind whereon its petals shall be laid.

[also: elegy, ode to silence, renascence, wraith, and eel-grass.]

[Sihame · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh lord, she deserves a spot right alongside Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson. she gets it, she really, really does. every poem feels like a revelation like something divine channeled through her words.

her connection to nature is so visceral, it’s like she lets you step into a world where you can breathe fresh air, feel the wind and exist beyond the concrete. living in a natureless city, i long for it every single day and mourn its absence. but through her poetry i was able to live it, to breathe in its beauty, to feel its presence in a way i haven’t in so long. beyond nature, she captures grief, passion, love, and longing with such intensity that it seeps into your bones. every emotion is raw, every line lingers.

i couldn't even choose a favorite poem, they were all absolute bangers. this book felt like a saint sent from heaven, and the way i stumbled upon it so randomly on the shelves of my local library? it was meant to be.

[neil]

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.

[Justin Pickett · Rating 3 out of 5]

“‘I’ve been a wicked girl,’ said I; ‘But if I can’t be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!’”

There were a few gems in here, but most of the poems were just okay. My favorites, in the following order, were: “Interim,” “First Fig,” “Travel,” “Kin to Sorrow,” “Bluebeard,” and “The Penitent.”

Excerpt from Interim

“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.”

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!”

Excerpt from Travel

“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.”

[Kali · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 or 3 Stars, I just cannot choose :’)

So, this was not a bad collection of poetry by any means. However, I think it was sort of a dumb choice by me to have picked up older works without starting off more slowly. I guess you could say I just jumped into this kind of stuff way to quickly, and that would be completely fair and correct.

My favorite out of everything I read in this book was ‘The Ballad of The Harp-Weaver’ - and I would recommend just reading this short passage if your interested in trying out Edna St. Vincent Millay’s writing!

[Sam Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

my edna vs emily reading is done!

i have to say that i really enjoyed edna’s poems. they mostly revolved around themes of death and nature which spoke to me in a new, interesting way. i felt like her poems were accessible but still rich. this was the first time that i came to the realization of how much work goes into a poem and why there are entire classes on one person’s work (LOLOLOL). i can see why mary oliver studied her and how edna shows up in mary’s poetry.

anyway, if i were to choose, i’d probably pick edna, sorry y’all!

i would highly recommend her!

[christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love love

[Noah Goats · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the precocious power of Renascence to the sentimental but surprisingly effective Ballad of the Harp Weaver, this collection contains one great poem after another. As far as I’m concerned, Millay is one of American literature’s greatest poets, and these lovely and witty poems show why.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential spring reading. I loved all the sonnets. I want to endlessly read this collection for the rest of my life.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied.

[Meghan Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

let them bury your big eyes in the secret earth securely

[Sarah Faber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in Maine so back to dad’s bookshelf of Maine authors. GREAT she’s awesome I loved the one about going to concerts alone and the one about April and the buck in the snow but this collection was missing 2 of my favs so it gets docked a star for not catering to me specifically

[Kaion · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a little irate that this volume turned out not to be the promised Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, but instead should be titled "Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay That Happens to be in the Public Domain". Namely, this consists of the entirety of her first three collections Renascence and Other Poems, A Few Figs From Thistles, and Second April; as well as "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver" and additional sonnets from American Poetry, 1922: A Miscellany.

There is something I find perpetually girlish about these poems, for all their claims of deathly romance and pretensions of classical timelessness. Millay is best as a poet of summer, effusive and energetic (and fond of those exclamation points). I think I like her best when she embraces the playfulness of language, of rhythm and rhyme, over her proclamations of loss and love.

Rating: 2 stars (Renanscence and A Few Figs are particularly sparse in interest, and I admit a disinterest in the sonnets altogether. Second April is the early collection to pursue here.)


My picks: "The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge", "Journey", "Inland".

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Renascence...

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!
- Afternoon on a Hill, pg. 23

* * *

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!

Swung in the wind, - and no wind blowing! -
 I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort, -
 And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!
 Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter, -
 Ah, it is good to feel you there!
- The Dream, pg. 33

* * *

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs, - no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies, - I can bear
They beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist, - with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink - and live - what has destroyed some men.
- Sonnets I, pg. 40


From A Few Figs from Thistles...

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, pg. 49

* * *

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

Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.

Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off; - to heel, Apollo!
- Daphne, pg. 62


From Second April...

To what purpose, April, do you come 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.
- Spring, pg. 75

* * *

No matter what I say,
 All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
 And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
 At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
 Nothing in this place.
- Eel-Grass, pg. 86

* * *

April this year, not otherwise
 Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
 Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
 Hepaticas that pleased you so
 Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,
 And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
 The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
 The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep,
 Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
 Go up the hillside in the sun,
 Pensively, - only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
- Song of a Second April, pg. 96


From Sonnets and Ballad Harp-Weaver...

When you, that at this moment are to me
Dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
And no more the warder of my heart,
Whereof again myself shell hold the key;
And be no more - what now you seem to be -
The sun, from which all excellences start
In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;
I shall remember only of this hour -
And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep -
The pathos of your love, that, like flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its petals shell be laid.
- Sonnet, pg. 149

* * *

“Son,” said my mother,
 When I was knee-high,

“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
 And not a rag have I.
 
“There’s nothing in the house
 To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
 Nor thread to take stitches.
 
“There’s nothing in the house
 But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
 Nobody will buy,”
 
 And she began to cry.
 
That was in the early fall.
 When came the late fall,

“Son,” she said, “the sight of you
 
 Makes your mother’s blood crawl,—
 
“Little skinny shoulder-blades
 Sticking through your clothes!
And where you’ll get a jacket from
 God above knows.
 
“It’s lucky for me, lad,
 Your daddy’s in the ground,
And can’t see the way I let
 His son go around!”
 And she made a queer sound.
 
That was in the late fall.
 When the winter came,
I’d not a pair of breeches
 Nor a shirt to my name.
 
I couldn’t go to school,
 Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
 Passed our way.
 
“Son,” said my mother,
 “Come, climb into my lap,
And I’ll chafe your little bones
 While you take a nap.”
 
And, oh, but we were silly
 For half an hour or more,
Me with my long legs
 Dragging on the floor,
 
A-rock-rock-rocking
 To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
 For half an hour’s time!
 
But there was I, a great boy,
 And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
 To sleep all day,
 In such a daft way?
 
Men say the winter
 Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
 And food was dear.
 
A wind with a wolf’s head
 Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
 And sat on the floor.
 
All that was left us
 Was a chair we couldn’t break,
And the harp with a woman’s head
 Nobody would take,
 For song or pity’s sake.
 
The night before Christmas
 I cried with the cold,
I cried myself to sleep
 Like a two-year-old.
 
And in the deep night
 I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
 With love in her eyes.
 
I saw my mother sitting
 On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
 From I couldn’t tell where,
 
Looking nineteen,
 And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman’s head
 Leaned against her shoulder.
 
Her thin fingers, moving
 In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving
 Wonderful things.
 
Many bright threads,
 From where I couldn’t see,
Were running through the harp-strings
 Rapidly,
 
And gold threads whistling
 Through my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,
 And the pattern expand.
 
She wove a child’s jacket,
 And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
 And wove another one.
 
She wove a red cloak
 So regal to see,

“She’s made it for a king’s son,”
 I said, “and not for me.”
 But I knew it was for me.
 
She wove a pair of breeches
 Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
 And a little cocked hat.
 
She wove a pair of mittens,
 She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
 In the still, cold house.
 
She sang as she worked,
 And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
 And the thread never broke.
 And when I awoke,—
 
There sat my mother
 With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
 And not a day older,
 
A smile about her lips,
 And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
 Frozen dead.
 
And piled up beside her
 And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son,
 Just my size.
- The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, pg. 156-160

[Ulrike Sikorski · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a ride! Some of them went straight to the soul. Heartbreakingly beautiful poetry.

Here are some of my favourites:

Renascence
Suicide
The penitent
Portrait by a neighbour
First Fig
Travel
Prayer to Persephone

Alms

My heart is what it was before,
      A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
      The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
      I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
      The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes:
      The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
      And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
      I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,—
      I only tend and water them.

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.


The Philosopher

And what are you that, wanting 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 on 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?


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.

And last, but definitely not least:

The Ballad of the harp-weaver

Holy shit! Too long to copy into this review, but this one gave me shivers!

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a dabbler in poetry. A poem or two read here and there. I picked up this collection of Edna St. Vincent Millay poems for a reading challenge as I've been meaning to read her poetry for some time. I figured I'd read a few poems at a time over a couple of months, become familiar with her work, and complete that challenge. Well, it took a lot longer than I thought, not because the poetry was long, dense, depressing. This was just not the right time, right year for me to read a lot of poetry. It felt more like school assignments than it did dipping into a couple of poems now and then.

I also made the mistake of skipping around the collection, using a system of bookmarks and tabs to mark where I read and where I didn't. It was a disaster, leaving me I'm sure reading some poems multiple times. Sort of like walking in circles.

I confess I did not finish the book but I did read more than the quota of poems I was supposed to read for the challenge, and I count it done at about 3/4's of the poems read. I pretty much ignored the longer poems, the ones for which she won awards I did like many, and admired her treatment of love, romance, death -- so much was so very fleeting. Some favorites: Bluebeard, Witch Wife, most of the selections in the collection from the A Few Figs from the Thistles especially Portrait of a Neighbor which had such joy and light to it. Her sonnets flowed so lightly. It resonated when I read it. I also appreciated those poems with classical references like Persephone and To S.M.: If He Should Lie A-Dying.

This exploration of some of Millay's poetry and the excellent forward to this collection led me to do some deep diving into a Google rabbit hole about Millay - a fascinating woman!

I'm putting this collection on a shelf within easy reach. I suspect I will dip into it again. A really should read with care the longer works like Renascence and Ballad of the Harp-Weaver.

[nicholas]

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more."

[Andy Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fine selection from four books, mostly early in Millay's career. Famous for her sonnets, she also showed intriguing skills with free verse and many styles in between. She occasionally went for an easy rhyme, but her syntax is always cleverly invented to convey a meaning beyond the individual words, which are usually very simple and sometimes in a fetching American colloquial that reveals her modern feminine irony ("A ghost in marble of a girl you knew / Who would have loved you in a day or two"). Millay's themes include love lost (or casually discarded), death, love of nature, and evocations of classical times.

[Camila · Rating 3 out of 5]

millay's best poems are her sonnets imo, but this is still a wonderful selection of her work.