Collected Poems

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What fury, what considerable rage, if only she,

  Upon whose icy breast,

  Unquestioned, uncaressed,

  One time I lay,

  And whom always I lack,

  Even to this day,

  Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,

  If only she therewith be given me back?”

  I sought her down that dolourous labyrinth,

  Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell,

  And in among the bloodless everywhere

  I sought her; but the air,

  Breathed many times and spent,

  Was fretful with a whispering discontent;

  And questioning me, importuning me to tell

  Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more,

  Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.

  I paused at every grievous door,

  And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space

  A hush was on them, while they watched my face;

  And then they fell a-whispering as before;

  So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.

  I sought her, too,

  Among the upper gods, although I knew

  She was not like to be where feasting is,

  Nor near to Heaven’s lord,

  Being a thing abhorred

  And shunned of him, although a child of his,

  (Not yours, not yours: to you she owes not breath,

  Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).

  Fearing to pass unvisited some place

  And later learn, too late, how all the while,

  With her still face,

  She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile,

  I sought her even to the sagging board whereat

  The stout immortals sat;

  But such a laughter shook the mighty hall

  No one could hear me say:

  Had she been seen upon the Hill that day?

  And no one knew at all

  How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.

  There is a garden lying in a lull

  Between the mountains and the mountainous sea . . .

  I know not where; but which a dream diurnal

  Paints on my lids a moment, till the hull

  Be lifted from the kernel,

  And Slumber fed to me.

  Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene,

  Though it would seem a ruined place and after

  Your lichenous heart, being full

  Of broken columns, caryatides

  Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees;

  And urns funereal altered into dust

  Minuter than the ashes of the dead;

  And Psyche’s lamp out of the earth up-thrust,

  Dripping itself in marble oil on what was once the bed

  Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.

  There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria

  Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,

  And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;

  There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;

  But never an echo of your daughters’ laughter

  Is there, nor any sign of you at all

  Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother or Pieria!

  Only her shadow once upon a stone

  I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.

  I tell you, you have done her body an ill,

  You chatterers, you noisy crew!

  She is not anywhere!

  I sought her in deep Hell;

  And through the world as well;

  I thought of Heaven and I sought her there:

  Above nor under ground

  Is Silence to be found,

  That was the very warp and woof of you,

  Lovely before your songs began and after they were through!

  Oh, say if on this hill

  Somewhere your sister’s body lies in death,

  So I may follow there, and make a wreath

  Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast

  Shall lie till age has withered them!

  (Ah, sweetly from the rest

  I see

  Turn and consider me

  Compassionate Euterpe!)

  “There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,

  Beyond the gate of everlasting Life,

  Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell,” she saith,

  “Whereon but to believe is horror!

  Whereon to meditate engendereth

  Even in deathless spirits such as I

  A tumult in the breath,

  A chilling of the inexhaustible blood

  Even in my veins that never will be dry,

  And in the austere, divine monotony

  That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.

  This is her province whom you lack and seek:

  And seek her not elsewhere.

  Hell is a thoroughfare

  For pilgrims,—Herakles,

  And he that loved Euridice too well,

  Have walked therein; and many more than these;

  And witnessed the desire and the despair

  Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air;

  You, too, have entered Hell,

  And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak

  None has returned;—for thither fury brings

  Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.

  Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there.”

  O radiant Song! O gracious Memory!

  Be long upon this height

  I shall not climb again! I know the way you mean,—the little night,

  And the long empty day,—never to see

  Again the angry light,

  Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain!

  AK, but she,

  Your other sister and my other soul,

  She shall again be mine.

  And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,

  A chilly thin green wine,

  Not bitter to the taste,

  Not sweet,

  Not of your press, O restless, clamourous Nine,—

  To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth—

  But savouring faintly of the acid earth

  And trod by pensive feet

  From perfect clusters ripened without haste

  Out of the urgent heat

  In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odourous vine.

  Lift up your lyres! Sing on!

  But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.

  Memorial to D. C.

  (Vassar College, 1918)

  O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,

  Where now no more the music is,

  With hands that wrote you little notes

  I write you little elegies!

  I

  Epitaph

  Heap not on this mound

  Roses that she loved so well;

  Why bewilder her with roses,

  That she cannot see or smell?

  She is happy where she lies

  With the dust upon her eyes.

  II

  Prayer to Persephone

  Be to her, Persephone,

  All the things I might not be;

  Take her head upon your knee.

  She that was so proud and wild,

  Flippant, arrogant and free,

  She that had no need of me,

  Is a little lonely child

  Lost in Hell,—Persephone,

  Take her head upon your knee;

  Say to her, “My dear, my dear,

  It is not so dreadful here.”

  III

  Chorus

  Give away her gowns,

  Give away her shoes;

  She has no more use

&nb
sp; For her fragrant gowns;

  Take them all down,

  Blue, green, blue,

  Lilac, pink, blue,

  From their padded hangers;

  She will dance no more

  In her narrow shoes;

  Sweep her narrow shoes

  From the closet floor.

  IV

  Dirge

  Boys and girls that held her dear,

  Do your weeping now;

  All you loved of her lies here.

  Brought to earth the arrogant brow,

  And the withering tongue

  Chastened; do your weeping now.

  Sing whatever songs are sung,

  Wind whatever wreath,

  For a playmate perished young,

  For a spirit spent in death.

  Boys and girls that held her dear,

  All you loved of her lies here.

  V

  Elegy

  Let them bury your big eyes

  In the secret earth securely,

  Your thin fingers, and your fair,

  Soft, indefinite-coloured 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 vigourous 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.

  ————

  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!

  From A Few Figs From Thistles

  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!

  Second Fig

  Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

  Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

  Recuerdo

  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,

  We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;

  And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

  We were very tired, we were very merry—

  We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

  And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

  From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;

  And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

  And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

  We were very tired, we were very merry,

  We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

  We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,

  And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

  And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,

  And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

  Thursday

  And if I loved you Wednesday,

  Well, what is that to you?

  I do not love you Thursday—

  So much is true.

  And why you come complaining

  Is more than I can see.

  I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what

  Is that to me?

  To the Not Impossible Him

  How shall I know, unless I go

  To Cairo and Cathay,

  Whether or not this blessèd spot

  Is blest in every way?

  Now it may be, the flower for me

  Is this beneath my nose;

  How shall I tell, unless I smell

  The Carthaginian rose?

  The fabric of my faithful love

  No power shall dim or ravel

  Whilst I stay here,—but oh, my dear,

  If I should ever travel!

  Macdougal Street

  As I went walking up and down to take the evening air,

  (Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)

  I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;

  (“Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!” )

  The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat,

  (Lay me out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!)

  And everywhere I stepped there was a baby or a cat;

  (Lord God in Heaven, will it never be dawn?)

  The fruit-carts and clam-carts were ribald as a fair,

  (Pink nets and wet shells trodden under heel)

  She had haggled from the fruit-man of his rotting ware;

  (I shall never get to sleep, the way I feel!)

  He walked like a king through the filth and the clutter,

  (Sweet to meet upon the street, why did you glance me by?)

  But he caught the quaint Italian quip she flung him from the gutter;

  (What can there be to cry about that I should lie and cry?)

  He laid his darling hand upon her little black head,

  (I wish I were a ragged child with ear-rings in my ears!)

  And he said she was a baggage to have said what she had said;

  (Truly I shall be ill unless I stop these tears!)

  The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge

  What should I be but a prophet and a liar,

  Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?

  Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,

  What should I be but the fiend’s god-daughter?

  And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,

  That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?

  And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,

  But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

  You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,

  As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,

  You will find such flame at the wave’s weedy ebb

  As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother’s web,

  But there comes to birth no common spawn

  From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,

  And you never have seen and you never will see

  Such things as the things that swaddled me!

  After all’s said and after all’s done,

  What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

  In through t
he bushes, on any foggy day,

  My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,

  With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,

  A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

  And there’d sit my Ma, with her knees beneath her chin,

  A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,

  And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying

  That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

  He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,

  He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,

  He blessèd me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,

  And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!

  Oh, the things I haven’t seen and the things I haven’t known,

  What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,

  And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,

  With a “Which would you better?” and a “Which would you rather?”

  With him for a sire and her for a dam,

  What should I be but just what I am?

  She Is Overheard Singing

  Oh, Prue she has a patient man,

  And Joan a gentle lover,

  And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,—

  But my true love’s a rover!

  Mig, her man’s as good as cheese

  And honest as a briar,

  Sue tells her love what he’s thinking of,—

  But my dear lad’s a liar!

  Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha

  Are thick with Mig and Joan!

  They bite their threads and shake their heads

  And gnaw my name like a bone;

  And Prue says, “Mine’s a patient man,

  As never snaps me up,”

  And Agatha, “Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,

  Could live content in a cup;”

  Sue’s man’s mind is like good jell—

  All one colour, and clear—

  And Mig’s no call to think at all

  What’s to come next year,

  While Joan makes boast of a gentle lad,

  That’s troubled with that and this;—

  But they all would give the life they live

  For a look from the man I kiss!

  Cold he slants his eyes about,

  And few enough’s his choice,—

  Though he’d slip me clean for a nun, or a queen,

  Or a beggar with knots in her voice,—

  And Agatha will turn awake

  While her good man sleeps sound,

  And Mig and Sue and Joan and Prue