Collected Poems

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Or, if not that, food.

  He walks through the apple orchard just now blossoming,

  Dismissing to the necessary, the developing, past

  The present beauty and the fragrance enfolding it.

  The courage that my mother had

  Went with her, and is with her still:

  Rock from New England quarried;

  Now granite in a granite hill.

  The golden brooch my mother wore

  She left behind for me to wear;

  I have no thing I treasure more:

  Yet, it is something I could spare.

  Oh, if instead she’d left to me

  The thing she took into the grave!—

  That courage like a rock, which she

  Has no more need of, and I have.

  Wild-cat, gnat and I

  Go our ways under a grey sky.

  Little that Himself has made

  Ever finds me quite afraid . . .

  Though if cat clawed me,

  Gnat gnawed me,

  I should shriek, or roll in grass,

  Asking that this trouble pass.

  Things that hunt in hunger

  I stroke, across my fear:

  Only anger

  Brings the crashing tear.

  This should be simple; if one’s power were great,

  If one were God, for instance,—and the world

  Not yet created; Lucifer not hurled

  Yet out of Heaven, to plot and instigate

  Most thoughtful mischief: simple, in a state

  Of non-existence, to manipulate

  And mould unwieldy, heavy, obstinate

  But thoughtless matter, into some bright world:—

  Make something out of nothing, and create

  As many planets, and as various men

  And other mortal creatures as might seem

  Consistent with the structure and the theme

  Of one’s proposed achievement; not from dream,

  No, not from aspiration, not from hope,

  But out of art and wisdom, and those powers

  Such as must qualify a god, create

  A world at least as beautiful and brave

  And terrified and sorrowful as ours.

  For nothingness is plastic, has no trend;

  Is stubborn but in this: it is inert;

  Wills not to render justice, nor do hurt;

  And should be, in strong hands, easy to bend.

  But evil upon evil laminate

  Through layers uncountable as leaves in coal—

  To strip that into strata—perpetrate

  Such outrage upon evil; and create

  Good out of wickedness at this late date—

  There, there’s a trick to tame the gamiest soul.

  Sweet earth, you might from birth—oh beaming sight:—

  With gentle glow have lighted all the night;

  And Man, a star upon a planet, see,

  Radiant beyond the furthest nebulae.

  But earth, though grown to green and lush estate,

  Her blossom, Man, has never yet unfurled:

  Observe how bawdy, botched and profligate,

  Except in greed, proceeds this pretty world.

  We move in darkness solemn and extreme;

  We falter forward, hesitate, decide

  To turn about, pause, fumble, plunge, collide,—

  Beg pardon, and then bob and bob about

  From left to right,

  Bump foreheads, then burst out

  In nervous, merry laughter, and plunge forth

  Into the forest suddenly, you running east by north,

  Gasping and stumbling over stumps, and I

  East by south,

  Slashing through bogs, tripped by submerged logs and

  with muddy water in my mouth,

  Till every sound subsides

  And all is lost in darkness and in fog,

  And neither of us has thought to say goodnight.

  Such blindness does not intercept the sight

  Of the efficient: they have learned by heart

  By daylight, from a most meticulous chart

  Just where to go; they know . . .

  And can as well through darkness as by day

  Find their direct, discreet, expedient way:

  Know where to go to muster, or to hide;

  They move among us all throughout the night;

  They pass close by your side;

  You do not hear their step, they step so light.

  . . . why cannot we as well as they

  Scout, reconnoiter, photograph, survey,

  Make maps and study them, and learn our way?—

  Or must we lie and sleep, “because ’tis night”?

  Then it is true, that in this world today

  Lucifer, alone, can bring men light.

  Must double-dealing, like a snake’s forked tongue,

  Flick red at us from under every stone?

  Must Honour be self-conscious, being alone?—

  And Aspiration, an infected lung?

  Must Justice always dawdle, don its wig,

  And wipe its spectacles before it speaks?

  And Government keep flapping to and fro

  Like a loose shutter on a hinge that squeaks?—

  Kindness of heart be such a whirligig?

  Courtesy mince and bow with pointed toe?

  Piety smirk?—and Scholarship repose

  In camphor, saving on Commencement Day?

  Evil alone has oil for every wheel;

  Rolls without friction and arrives on time;

  Looks forward and sees far; does not reveal

  Itself in conversation; is sublime

  In logic; is not wasteful; does not feel

  Compunction; buries the dead past in lime.

  I think, perhaps, the gods, who may not die,

  May not achieve unconsciousness, forget

  Even their errors or their sins, are set

  On making daily pieties comply

  With nightly assignations—and are shy

  Of mortal things, like laughter, say, or tears,—

  Things which they might regret an eon of years—

  Fervour, devotion, fright, audacity.

  But we are singled out,—oh, we have doom

  To comfort us,—sweet peril, imminent death—

  So we have leisure, we have time, have room

  For wide despair and all its leagues beneath,

  Lethal delights the gods dare not assume,

  And, not possessing them, cannot bequeath.

  And, out of haughty, smooth, serene despair,

  We might envisage, and we might fulfill

  Appointments and arrangements, which the fair

  Soft gods have never made, and never will.

  From so much energy, so little hope,

  So vast a consolation in the end,

  We could erect a thing of poise and scope,

  Which future generations might defend,

  And put to their own use; and what we grope

  To get a glimpse of, they might comprehend.

  To build a house would be, it seems to me,

  An easy task, if you had solid, good,

  Simple material, clean of history:

  Honest, unbiased brick, cement, and wood—

  If you had sense, authority, and time,

  And need not quibble, shift, cajole, subdue,

  Break down partitions, breathe old hair and lime,

  And tease the out-of-plumb into the true—

  If you need not, for instance, for one thing,

  Lure ancient chimneys to be lined with tile,

  Oh, what a joy! Oh, hear the hammers ring!

  A house!—and building houses is worth while.

  We, we, the living, we, the still-alive,—

  Why, what a triumph, what a task is here!

  But how to go about it?—how connive

  To outwit Evil in his proper sphe
re

  And element?·—Evil, conservative,

  Established, disciplined, adroit, severe.

  And yet, in some way, yet, we may contrive

  To build our world; if not this year, next year.

  Song

  Beautiful Dove, come back to us in April:

  You could not over-winter on our world.

  Fly to some milder planet until springtime;

  Return with olive in your claws upcurled.

  Leave us to shrikes and ravens until springtime

  We let them find their food as best they may;

  But you, we do not grow the grain you feed or

  And you will starve among us, if you stay.

  But oh, in April, from some balmier climate

  Come back to us, be with us in the spring!

  If we can learn to grow the grain you feed on,

  You might be happy here; might even sing.

  New England Spring, 1942

  The rush of rain against the glass

  Is louder than my noisy mind

  Crying, “Alas!”

  The rain shouts: “Hear me, how I melt the ice that clamps the

  bent and frozen grass!

  Winter cannot come twice

  Even this year!

  I break it up; I make it water the roots of spring!

  I am the harsh beginning, poured in torrents down the hills,

  And dripping from the trees and soaking, later, and when the

  wind is still,

  Into the roots of flowers, which your eyes, incredulous, soon

  will suddenly find!

  Comfort is almost here.”

  The sap goes up the maple; it drips fast

  From the tapped maple into the tin pail

  Through tubes of hollow elder; the pails brim;

  Birds with scarlet throats and yellow bellies sip from the pail’s

  rim.

  Snow falls thick; it is sifted

  Through cracks about windows and under doors;

  It is drifted through hedges into country roads. It cannot last.

  Winter is past.

  It is hurling back at us boasts of no avail.

  But Spring is wise. Pale and with gentle eyes, one day somewhat

  she advances;

  The next, with a flurry of snow into flake-filled skies retreats

  before the heat in our eyes, and the thing designed

  By the sick and longing mind in its lonely fancies—

  The sally which would force her and take her.

  And Spring is kind.

  Should she come running headlong in a wind-whipped acre

  Of daffodil skirts down the mountain into this dark valley we

  would go blind.

  Here in a Rocky Cup

  Here in a rocky cup of earth

  The simple acorn brought to birth

  What has in ages grown to be

  A very oak, a mighty tree.

  The granite of the rock is split

  And crumbled by the girth of it.

  Incautious was the rock to feed

  The acorn’s mouth; unwise indeed

  Am I, upon whose stony heart

  Fell softly down, sits quietly,

  The seed of love’s imperial tree

  That soon may force my breast apart.

  “ I fear you not. I have no doubt

  My meagre soil shall starve you out!”

  Unless indeed you prove to be

  The kernel of a kingly tree;

  Which if you be I am content

  To go the way the granite went,

  And be myself no more at all,

  So you but prosper and grow tall.

  How innocent we lie among

  The righteous!—Lord, how sweet we smell,

  Doing this wicked thing, this love,

  Bought up by bishops!—doing well,

  With all our leisure, all our pride,

  What’s illy done and done in haste

  By licensed folk on every side,

  Spitting out fruit before they taste.

  (That stalk must thrust a clubby bud;

  Push an abortive flower to birth.)

  Under the moon and the lit scud

  Of the clouds, the cool conniving earth

  Pillows my head, where your head lies;

  Weep, if you must, into my hair

  Tomorrow’s trouble: the cold eyes

  That know you gone and wonder where.

  But tell the bishops with their sons,

  Shout to the City Hall how we

  Under a thick barrage of guns

  Filched their divine commodity.

  Armenonville

  By the lake at Armenonville in the Bois de Boulogne

  Small begonias had been set in the embankment, both

  pink and red;

  With polished leaf and brittle, juicy stem;

  They covered the embankment; there were wagon-loads

  of them,

  Charming and neat, gay colours in the warm shade.

  We had preferred a table near the lake, half out of view,

  Well out of hearing, for a voice not raised above

  A low, impassioned question and its low reply.

  We both leaned forward with our elbows on the table,

  and you

  Watched my mouth while I answered, and it made me

  shy.

  I looked about, but the waiters knew we were in love,

  And matter-of-factly left us blissfully alone.

  There swam across the lake, as I looked aside, avoiding

  Your eyes for a moment, there swam from under the

  pink and red begonias

  A small creature; I thought it was a water-rat; it swam

  very well,

  In complete silence, and making no ripples at all

  Hardly; and when suddenly I turned again to you,

  Aware that you were speaking, and perhaps had been

  speaking for some time,

  I was aghast at my absence, for truly I did not know

  Whether you had been asking or telling.

  Tristan

  I

  Put it down! I say; put it down,—here, give it to me, I know

  what is in it, you Irish believer in fairies! Here, let me

  smash it

  Once and for all,

  Against the corner of the wall!

  Do we need philtres?

  Look at me! Look at me! Then come here.

  This fearful thing is pure

  That is between us. I want to be sure that nothing drowses it.

  Look at me!

  This torture and this rapture will endure.

  II

  I still can see

  How you hastily and abstractedly flung down

  To the floor,

  Having raked it, arm after arm,

  Over your head,

  Your lustrous gown;

  And how, before

  Its silken susurration had subsided,

  We were as close together as it is possible for two people to be.

  It was your maid, I think,

  Who picked it up in the morning, while we lay

  Still abed, exhausted by inexhaustible love;

  I saw her, I saw her through half-closed eyes, kneel above it,

  And smooth it, with a concerned hand, and a face full of

  thoughtfulness.

  Not that the dress

  Was fragile,

  Or had suffered harm,

  But that you had planned

  To walk in it, when you walked ashore:

  And our ship was getting minute by minute, more and more

  Close to Tintagel.

  III

  There were herbs strown

  Over the bed-room floor, alkanet,

  Perhaps, and several of the mints, and costmary,

  Too, I think; they were fresh and brash and fragrant, but a man

  can forget

  All na
mes but one. I was not alone in the room.

  Even in the morning they were fresh, they had not died.

  We had meant to have tied

  Some of them into garlands, but we had no time.

  They were fragrant even without being touched, there was so

  much

  Pressure against them from the passion that beat against that

  room

  Enough to wrench its rafters down.

  I was late getting down

  To the shore. Women there,

  With sea-wind slashing their hair into their eyes, were drying

  Long net and long net and long net.

  IV

  Heavily on the faithful bulk of Kurvenal,

  My servant for a long time, leaning,

  With footsteps less from weakness than for pleasure in the

  green grass, lagging, I came here,

  Out of the house, to lie, propped up on pillows, under this

  fine tree—

  Oak older than I, but still, not being ill, growing,

  Granted to feel, I think, barring lightning, year after year,—and

  barring the axe—

  For a long time yet, the green sap flowing.

  Dream of Saba

  Calm was Half-Moon Bay; we lay at anchor there

  Just off Tortola; when the hurricane,

  Leaving its charted path, leapt full upon us,

  And we were bruised and sobbing from the blows of the rain

  Before we knew by what we were attacked or could in any way

  prepare.

  “How dark it is tonight!” someone had said.

  The lantern in the rigging burned serene

  Through its glass chimney without crack and polished clean;

  The wick well trimmed; plenty of kerosene.

  We went to bed.

  Following a fearful night I do not quite remember came a kind

  of dawn, not light,

  But something we could see by. And we saw

  What we had missed by inches: what we were headed for.

  Astern, in an empty sea,

  Suddenly, and before a man could cry, “Look there!”

  Appeared what for an instant seemed to be

  Black backs of half a hundred porpoises.

  Before the eyes could blink at these,

  They were black reefs, which rose into the air

  With awful speed till they were mountains; these, one moment

  there,

  Streaming sea-water stood against the sky;

  Then all together and with awful speed diminished and like