The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2019 with the help of original edition published long back [1928]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 86. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.}

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1928

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

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

By halfway though this book, it was plain to me that Millay wrote it in the midst of a struggle with despair, most likely over the infamous execution of the anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti. This execution occurred in 1927 (one year prior to The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems) depite recanted witness testimonies and conflicting ballistics evidence. Millay had campaigned in the extensive movement to prove their innocence, and the loss must have affected her deeply. Although only a couple poems in this book deal with the execution directly, these two were particularly powerful and heartfelt, and the same disillusion in them can be felt in most of the other poems too.

Her struggle lends the book a bleakness (particularly in the first quarter of the book) in a "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" kind of way, but it also speaks to me strongly. The sonnet "To Jesus on His Birthday" for instance is almost devastatingly powerful!

For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
...
The stone the angel rolled away with tears
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.

I feel deeply for this ardent, intelligent woman as she looks out upon a difficult, broken world. In the portion of the public that supported the executions, she clearly saw a general lack of compassion and even integrity of thought that disillusioned her. And given some callous rhetoric of her day, I can certainly understand her disappointment, especially in the un-Christian mindset of the religious people who were supposed to be motivated by the Sermon on the Mount. Particularly now, her disappointment in their lack of compassion speaks to me.

And yet despite this, the second half of the book is intermittently shot through with hope. For instance, I love the exhorting end to her sonnet "The Pioneer," responding to a statue dedicated to Mott, Anthony, and Stanton:

Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

In terms of craft, this book (along with Fatal Interview: Sonnets) is one of two strongest of her books that I've read so far, and I've read several. The language is sparer, more modern, and the word choice has more resonance.

The title poem is pleasing in its directness:

White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered
     buck and his doe
Standing in the apple orchard? I saw them. I saw
     them suddenly go,
Tails up, with leaps lovely and slow,
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks
     bowed with snow

There were one or two excellent poems in Renascence & Other Poems, but here to my ear, there are a great many. Quite a few of the lyrics and sonnets alike strike me as very fine. Also, this book for the most part abandons the histrionic posing of Romanticism with a capital R that's very strong in some of the lyrics in earlier books, particularly Second April.

Overall, this is an excellent book that doesn't require a great deal of head scratching to understand. A closer reading can yield more, of course, but the entire book can be comfortably read over a handful of hours.

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defiance of Death was a recurring theme all throughout Millay’s career, and no poet ever wrote on that topic more eloquently or with greater passion. Two of her most impassioned poems of Death defied are here in The Buck In The Snow, Moriturus, and Dirge Without Music.

In Moriturus, Millay first considers the peace of the grave, and ponders on terms of a truce with death. But upon further consideration of death’s true cost, she declares:

Withstanding Death
Till Life be gone,
I shall treasure my breath,
I shall linger on.

With all my might
My door shall be barred.
I shall put up a fight,
I shall take it hard.

With his hand on my mouth
He shall drag me forth,
Shrieking to the south
And clutching at the north.

Dirge Without Music is a quieter, more refined defiance, but defiance still:

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.

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.

If you have a heart to crush with beauty and sadness, this poem will do it.

Yet this small volume is not all given over to poems of death. Millay expressed in poetry both her social conscious and her social criticism. Justice Denied In Massachusetts is the poem she wrote in protest of the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, the cause celebre of the 1920s. And in her sonnet, To Jesus On His Birthday, her critique of American culture is bitingly clear:

For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.

The remainder of the volume has numerous poems to note; Being Young and Green, The Anguish, To Those Without Pity and Evening On Lesbos are among my favorites. I will leave you with a portion of Winter Night, a poem of hearth and comfort agains the cold:

The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and story- telling.

[Dana Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how to express the love I have for Edna St. Vincent Millay. I know she's long dead and her ghostly form is vibing somewhere in Greenwich Village, but I would give up both of my kidneys for her in a heartbeat.

There were some poems in this collection that I didn't love - those tended to be the ones about nature, which is very typical for me and no reflection on how well Millay writes them.

My favourite part of this collection was (by far) part 3, and my favourite poems overall were:
For Pao-chin
The Anguish
Evening on Lesbos
Dirge Without Music

The way she writes about death and love and loss is unparalleled for me. Edna please haunt me

[William Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read to digest for one wanting to get back into poetry. I don't read a lot of it, but I like it. I wanted to give Millay's words a try for years, and now am elated. She was a terrific wordsmith, more straightforward in her verse than some poets, but very enjoyable. I loved Moritorus! INSENSATE MATTER WITH SENSATE ME. The line kills. Yeah, I'll be digging into her poems more from now on. I confess to not being as much into less than half of them, but that's me, not the writing. But those I did enjoy were utterly fascinating.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of Millay's poetry is filled with rich depictions of the natural world, woven with some deep lamentations about death and strained relationships.
There are a few real gems in the mix here and I'm grateful to the writers of Poker Face for using a stanza of Dirge Without Music in the show, which inspired me to seek out Millay's work.

[Adam Carrico · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Take up the song; forget the epitaph.”

[Omama. · Rating 3 out of 5]

““Life, were thy pains as are the pains of hell,
So hardly to be borne, yet to be borne”

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dirge without Music
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.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best it 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 of 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.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

So so so good, especially "To Jesus on His Birthday."

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites: "Moriturus," "The Bobolink," "Dawn," and "Dirge without Music"