Collected Poems
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Edited by Norma Millay
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Foreword
From Renascence
Renascence
Interim
The Suicide
God’s World
Afternoon on a Hill
Sorrow
Tavern
Ashes of Life
The Little Ghost
Kin to Sorrow
Three Songs of Shattering
I. The first rose on my rose-tree
II. Let the little birds sing
III. All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree
The Shroud
The Dream
Indifference
Witch-Wife
Blight
When the Year Grows Old
From Second April
Spring
City Trees
The Blue-Flag in the Bog
Journey
Eel-Grass
Elegy Before Death
The Bean-Stalk
Weeds
Passer Mortuus Est
Pastoral
Assault
Travel
Low-Tide
Song of a Second April
Rosemary
The Poet and His Book
Alms
Inland
To a Poet that Died Young
Wraith
Ebb
Elaine
Burial
Mariposa
The Little Hill
Doubt No More that Oberon
Lament
Exiled
The Death of Autumn
Ode to Silence
Memorial to D.C.
I. Epitaph
II. Prayer to Persephone
III. Chorus
IV. Dirge
V. Elegy
Wild Swans
From A Few Figs from Thistles
First Fig
Second Fig
Recuerdo
Thursday
To the Not Impossible Him
Macdougal Street
The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge
She Is Overheard Singing
The Unexplorer
Grown-up
The Penitent
Daphne
Portrait by a Neighbour
Midnight Oil
The Merry Maid
To Kathleen
To S.M.
The Philosopher
From The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems
My Heart, Being Hungry
Autumn Chant
Nuit Blanche
Three Songs from “The Lamp and the Bell”
I. Oh, little rose tree, bloom
II. Beat me a crown of bluer metal
III. Rain comes down
The Wood Road
Feast
Souvenir
Scrub
The Goose-Girl
The Dragonfly
Departure
The Return from Town
A Visit to the Asylum
The Spring and the Fall
The Curse
Keen
The Betrothal
Humoresque
The Pond
The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
Never May the Fruit Be Plucked
The Concert
Hyacinth
To One Who Might Have Borne a Message
Siege
The Cairn
Spring Song
Memory of Cape Cod
From The Buck in the Snow
Moriturus
Song
To the Wife of a Sick Friend
The Bobolink
The Hawkweed
To a Friend Estranged from Me
The Road to Avrillé
For Pao-Chin, a Boatman on the Yellow Sea
Northern April
There at Dusk I Found You
Being Young and Green
Mist in the Valley
The Hardy Garden
The Pigeons
The Buck in the Snow
The Anguish
Justice Denied in Massachusetts
Hangman’s Oak
Wine from These Grapes
To Those Without Pity
Dawn
To a Young Girl
Evening on Lesbos
Dirge Without Music
Memory of Cassis
Portrait
Winter Night
The Cameo
Counting-out Rhyme
The Plum Gatherer
West Country Song
Pueblo Pot
When Caesar Fell
Lethe
On First Having Heard the Skylark
To a Musician
From Poems Selected for Young People
From a Very Little Sphinx
I. Come along in then, little girl
II. Oh, burdock, and you other dock
III. Everybody but just me
IV. I know a hundred ways to die
V. Look, Edwin! Do you see that boy
VI. All the grown-up people say
VII. Wonder where this horseshoe went
From Wine from These Grapes
The Return
October—An Etching
Autumn Daybreak
The Oak-Leaves
The Fledgling
The Hedge of Hemlocks
Cap D’ Antibes
From a Train Window
The Fawn
Valentine
In the Grave No Flower
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
The Solid Sprite Who Stands Alone
Spring in the Garden
Sonnet
Aubade
Sappho Crosses the Dark River into Hades
Epitaph
On Thought in Harness
Desolation Dreamed Of
The Leaf and the Tree
On the Wide Heath
My Spirit, Sore from Marching
Conscientious Objector
Apostrophe to Man
Above These Cares
If Still Your Orchards Bear
Lines for a Grave-Stone
How Naked, How Without a Wall
From Huntsman, What Quarry?
The Ballad of Chaldon Down
The Princess Recalls Her One Adventure
Short Story
Pretty Love, I Must outlive You
English Sparrows
Impression: Fog Off the Coast of Dorset
The Rabbit
Song for Young Lovers in a City
To a Calvinist in Bali
Thanksgiving Dinner
The Snow Storm
Huntsman, What Quarry?
Not So Far as the Forest
I. That chill is in the air
II. Branch by branch
III. Distressed mind, forbear
IV. Not dead of wounds, not borne
V. Poor passionate thing
Rendezvous
The Fitting
What Savage Blossom
Menses
The Plaid Dress
“Fontaine, Je Ne Bourai Pas De Ton Eau!”
Intention to Escape from Him
To a Young Poet
Modern Declaration
The Road to the Past
The True Encounter
Theme and Variations
I. Not even my pride will suffer much
II. Heart, do not bruise the breast
III. Rolled in the trough of thick desire
IV. And do you think that love itself
V. I had not thought so tame a thing
VI. Leap now into
this quiet grave
VII. Now from a stout and more imperious day
VIII. The time of year ennobles you
To Elinor Wylie
I. Song for a Lute (2927)
II. For you there is no song (1928)
III. Sonnet in Answer to a Question (1838)
IV. Nobody now throughout the pleasant day
V. Gone over to the enemy now
VI. Over the Hollow Land
Inert Perfection
Say that We Saw Spain Die
Underground System
Two Voices
Mortal Flesh, Is Not Your Place in the Ground?
No Earthly Enterprise
Lines Written in Recapitulation
This Dusky Faith
Truce for a Moment
From Make Bright the Arrows
To the Maid of Orleans
Memory of England (October 1940)
Poems which have not appeared in any of the previous volumes
The Pear Tree
Tree Ceremonies
Druids’ Chant
Song of the Nations
Baccalaureate Hymn (with facsimile of Original Broadside)
Invocation to the Muses
To S.V.B.—June 15, 1940
If, in the Foggy Aleutians
Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army
Christmas Canticle
We have gone too far
Deep in the muck of unregarded doom
The Animal Ball
Through the Green Forest
As sharp as in my childhood
By goodness and by evil so surrounded
At least, my dear
From Mine the Harvest
Small Hands, Relinquish All
Ragged Island
To whom the house of Montagu was neighbour
This is mine, and I can hold it
Of what importance, O my lovely girls, my dancers
Few come this way
The Strawberry Shrub
When It Is Over
The courage that my mother had
Wild-cat, gnat and I
This should be simple; if one’s power were great
Song
New England Spring, 1942
Here in a Rocky Cup
How innocent we lie
Armenonville
Tristan
I. Put it down! I say
II. I still can see
III. There were herbs strown
IV. Heavily on the faithful bulk of Kurvenal
Dream of Saba
Who hurt you so
When the tree-sparrows with no sound
Amorphous is the mind
For Warmth Alone, for Shelter Only
The Agnostic
The apple-trees bud, but I do not
Black hair you’d say she had
Cave Canem
An Ancient Gesture
Jesus to His Disciples
Establishment is shocked
Some Things Are Dark
If it should rain
The Parsi Woman
Journal
The sea at sunset can reflect
I, in disgust with the living
How did I bear it
Men Working
Steepletop
I. Even you, Sweet Basil
II. Nothing could stand all this rain
III. Borage, forage for bees
The Gardener in Haying-Time
Sky-coloured bird
To a Snake
I woke in the night and heard the wind
Look how the bittersweet
Truck-Garden Market-Day
Intense and terrible, I think, must be the loneliness
Sometimes, oh, often, indeed
Not for a Nation
Sonnets
From Renascence
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring
Not in this chamber only at my birth
If I should learn, in some quite casual way
This door you might not open, and you did
From A Few Figs from Thistles
I do but ask that you be always fair
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts
I think I should have loved you presently
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
I shall forget you presently, my dear
From Second April
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend
Into the golden vessel of great song
Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
Only until this cigarette is ended
Once more into my arid days like dew
No rose that in a garden ever grew
When I too long have looked upon your face
And you as well must die, beloved dust
Let you not say of me when I am old
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
From The Harp-Weaver
When you, that at this moment are to me
That Love at length should find me out and bring
Love is not blind. I see with single eye
I know I am but summer to your heart
I pray you if you love me, bear my joy
Pity me not because the light of day
Sometimes when I am wearied suddenly
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know
I shall go back again to the bleak shore
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
Collected Poems Page 1
