PolyArchive

Edna St. Vincent Millay critiques E.E. Cummings Two of our favorite poets around here are Edna St. Vincent Millay and E.E. Cummings, who, despite overlapping in lifespans, hail from two different generations of American poetry. In Savage Beauty, an excellent Millay biography by Nancy Milford, the author reconstructs Millay’s contributions to the 1933 Guggenheim Fellowship […]

Kin to Sorrow Edna St. Vincent Millay AM I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door— Neither loud nor soft, But as long accustomed, Under Sorrow’s hand? Marigolds around the step And rosemary stand, And then comes Sorrow— And what does Sorrow care For the rosemary Or the marigolds there? […]

Sonnet V Edna St. Vincent Millay IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again— Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) […]

Sonnet VII Edna St. Vincent Millay When I too long have looked upon your face, Wherein for me a brightness unobscured Save by the mists of brightness has its place, And terrible beauty not to be endured, I turn away reluctant from your light, And stand irresolute, a mind undone, A silly, dazzled thing deprived […]

Edna St. Vincent Millay The Courage that My Mother Had 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: […]

Renascence Edna St. Vincent Millay All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked the other way, And saw three islands in a bay. So with my eyes I traced the line Of the horizon, thin and fine, Straight around till I was come Back […]

The Leaf and the Tree Edna St. Vincent Millay When will you learn, myself, to be a dying leaf on a living tree? Budding, swelling, growing strong, Wearing green, but not for long, Drawing sustenance from air, That other leaves, and you not there, May bud, and at the autumn’s call Wearing russet, ready to […]

God’s World Edna St. Vincent Millay 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 And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, […]