‘A Dirge Without Music’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a beautiful dirge. The poet uses clear and lyrical language to describe how lovers and thinkers alike go into the darkness of death with a little remaining.
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.
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
‘Ashes of Life’ tells of a speaker who has lost all touch with her own ambitions and is stuck within the monotonous rut of everyday life.
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
‘Elegy Before Death’ is a poem about the physical and spiritual impact of a loss and how it can and cannot change one’s world.
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
‘First Fig’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a well-loved and often discussed poem. In it, readers can explore a symbolic depiction of sexuality and freedom.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
‘God’s World’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay describes the wonders of nature and the value a speaker places on the sights she observes.
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
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
‘I, Being born a Woman and Distressed’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay encourages women to walk away from emotionally turbulent relationships.
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
Journey’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay describes a speaker’s desire to live a life experienced on an open path, and filled with natural wonder.
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Explore more poems from Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Loving you less than life, a little less
Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall
Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess
I cannot swear I love you not at all.
‘Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a powerful poem about a woman’s decision to assert her independence.
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
“What a big book for such a little head!”
‘Ragged Island’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a personal poem about Millay’s days spent on Ragged Island off the coast of Maine. It explores the peace of mind the place was able to bring out in her.
There, there where those black spruces crowd
To the edge of the precipitous cliff,
Above your boat, under the eastern wall of the island;
And no wave breaks; as if
‘Recuerdo’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of a night the speaker spent sailing back and forth on a ferry, eating fruit and watching the sky.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Renascence’ is a moving poem. The poet explores themes of suffering, time, rebirth, and spirituality.
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.
Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
‘Sorrow’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a lyric poem written about a speaker’s depression. The short piece is filled with evocative depictions of what feeling all-encompassing sorrow is like.
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, —
Dawn will find them still again;
‘Spring’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is an interesting poem that takes an original view on spring. It criticizes the season and all it brings with it.
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
‘Still will I harvest beauty where it grows’ is a lovely poem in which readers are asked to appreciate the world on a deeper level.
Still will I harvest beauty where it grows:
In coloured fungus and the spotted fog
Surprised on foods forgotten; in ditch and bog
Filmed brilliant with irregular rainbows
‘Tavern’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a beautiful, short poem that speaks to one person’s desire to take care of others.
I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.
‘The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay depicts the lengths mothers will go to in order to protect their children. The speaker recalls watching his mother sacrifice herself for him when he was a young boy, weaving an enormous pile of clothing with a harp.
“Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
‘The Buck in the Snow’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay describes the power of death to cross all boundaries and inflict loss on even the most peaceful of times.
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 long leaps lovely and slow,
I would have given more than I care to say
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend
One moment only of that forest day:
‘The Penitent’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay describes the internal turmoil of a narrator who wants to feel sorrow for a sin she has committed.
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
‘Time does not bring relief; you all have lied’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of an emotionally damaged woman, seeking relief from heartbreak.
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;
‘Travel’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay speaks of one narrator’s unquenchable longing for the opportunity to escape from her everyday life.
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.
‘What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why’ is an Italian sonnet about being unable to recall what made one happy in the past.
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
‘Wild Swans’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of a speaker’s desperation to get out of her current physical and emotional space and find a bird-like freedom.
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;
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