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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 109 ***
+
+Renascence and Other Poems
+
+
+by
+
+Edna St. Vincent Millay
+
+
+
+
+  Contents:
+
+
+
+  Renascence
+       All I could see from where I stood
+
+  Interim
+       The room is full of you!--As I came in
+
+  The Suicide
+       "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
+
+  God's World
+       O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
+
+  Afternoon on a Hill
+       I will be the gladdest thing
+
+  Sorrow
+       Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
+
+  Tavern
+       I'll keep a little tavern
+
+  Ashes of Life
+       Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
+
+  The Little Ghost
+       I knew her for a little ghost
+
+  Kin to Sorrow
+       Am I 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
+       Death, I say, my heart is bowed
+
+  The Dream
+       Love, if I weep it will not matter,
+
+  Indifference
+       I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--
+
+  Witch-Wife
+       She is neither pink nor pale,
+
+  Blight
+       Hard seeds of hate I planted
+
+  When the Year Grows Old
+       I cannot but remember
+
+  Sonnets
+
+  I
+       Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
+
+  II
+       Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
+
+  III
+       Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
+
+  IV
+       Not in this chamber only at my birth--
+
+  V
+       If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
+
+  VI     Bluebeard
+       This door you might not open, and you did;
+
+
+
+
+  Renascence and Other Poems
+
+
+
+
+  Renascence
+
+
+  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.
+  So with my eyes I traced the line
+  Of the horizon, thin and fine,
+  Straight around till I was come
+  Back to where I'd started from;
+  And all I saw from where I stood
+  Was three long mountains and a wood.
+  Over these things I could not see;
+  These were the things that bounded me;
+  And I could touch them with my hand,
+  Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
+  And all at once things seemed so small
+  My breath came short, and scarce at all.
+  But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
+  Miles and miles above my head;
+  So here upon my back I'll lie
+  And look my fill into the sky.
+  And so I looked, and, after all,
+  The sky was not so very tall.
+  The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
+  And--sure enough!--I see the top!
+  The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
+  I 'most could touch it with my hand!
+  And reaching up my hand to try,
+  I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
+  I screamed, and--lo!--Infinity
+  Came down and settled over me;
+  Forced back my scream into my chest,
+  Bent back my arm upon my breast,
+  And, pressing of the Undefined
+  The definition on my mind,
+  Held up before my eyes a glass
+  Through which my shrinking sight did pass
+  Until it seemed I must behold
+  Immensity made manifold;
+  Whispered to me a word whose sound
+  Deafened the air for worlds around,
+  And brought unmuffled to my ears
+  The gossiping of friendly spheres,
+  The creaking of the tented sky,
+  The ticking of Eternity.
+  I saw and heard, and knew at last
+  The How and Why of all things, past,
+  And present, and forevermore.
+  The Universe, cleft to the core,
+  Lay open to my probing sense
+  That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
+  But could not,--nay! But needs must suck
+  At the great wound, and could not pluck
+  My lips away till I had drawn
+  All venom out.--Ah, fearful pawn!
+  For my omniscience paid I toll
+  In infinite remorse of soul.
+  All sin was of my sinning, all
+  Atoning mine, and mine the gall
+  Of all regret. Mine was the weight
+  Of every brooded wrong, the hate
+  That stood behind each envious thrust,
+  Mine every greed, mine every lust.
+  And all the while for every grief,
+  Each suffering, I craved relief
+  With individual desire,--
+  Craved all in vain!  And felt fierce fire
+  About a thousand people crawl;
+  Perished with each,--then mourned for all!
+  A man was starving in Capri;
+  He moved his eyes and looked at me;
+  I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
+  And knew his hunger as my own.
+  I saw at sea a great fog bank
+  Between two ships that struck and sank;
+  A thousand screams the heavens smote;
+  And every scream tore through my throat.
+  No hurt I did not feel, no death
+  That was not mine; mine each last breath
+  That, crying, met an answering cry
+  From the compassion that was I.
+  All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
+  Mine, pity like the pity of God.
+  Ah, awful weight!  Infinity
+  Pressed down upon the finite Me!
+  My anguished spirit, like a bird,
+  Beating against my lips I heard;
+  Yet lay the weight so close about
+  There was no room for it without.
+  And so beneath the weight lay I
+  And suffered death, but could not die.
+
+  Long had I lain thus, craving death,
+  When quietly the earth beneath
+  Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
+  At last had grown the crushing weight,
+  Into the earth I sank till I
+  Full six feet under ground did lie,
+  And sank no more,--there is no weight
+  Can follow here, however great.
+  From off my breast I felt it roll,
+  And as it went my tortured soul
+  Burst forth and fled in such a gust
+  That all about me swirled the dust.
+
+  Deep in the earth I rested now;
+  Cool is its hand upon the brow
+  And soft its breast beneath the head
+  Of one who is so gladly dead.
+  And all at once, and over all
+  The pitying rain began to fall;
+  I lay and heard each pattering hoof
+  Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
+  And seemed to love the sound far more
+  Than ever I had done before.
+  For rain it hath a friendly sound
+  To one who's six feet underground;
+  And scarce the friendly voice or face:
+  A grave is such a quiet place.
+
+  The rain, I said, is kind to come
+  And speak to me in my new home.
+  I would I were alive again
+  To kiss the fingers of the rain,
+  To drink into my eyes the shine
+  Of every slanting silver line,
+  To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
+  From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
+  For soon the shower will be done,
+  And then the broad face of the sun
+  Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
+  Until the world with answering mirth
+  Shakes joyously, and each round drop
+  Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
+  How can I bear it; buried here,
+  While overhead the sky grows clear
+  And blue again after the storm?
+  O, multi-colored, multiform,
+  Beloved beauty over me,
+  That I shall never, never see
+  Again!  Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
+  That I shall never more behold!
+  Sleeping your myriad magics through,
+  Close-sepulchred away from you!
+  O God, I cried, give me new birth,
+  And put me back upon the earth!
+  Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
+  And let the heavy rain, down-poured
+  In one big torrent, set me free,
+  Washing my grave away from me!
+
+  I ceased; and through the breathless hush
+  That answered me, the far-off rush
+  Of herald wings came whispering
+  Like music down the vibrant string
+  Of my ascending prayer, and--crash!
+  Before the wild wind's whistling lash
+  The startled storm-clouds reared on high
+  And plunged in terror down the sky,
+  And the big rain in one black wave
+  Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
+  I know not how such things can be;
+  I only know there came to me
+  A fragrance such as never clings
+  To aught save happy living things;
+  A sound as of some joyous elf
+  Singing sweet songs to please himself,
+  And, through and over everything,
+  A sense of glad awakening.
+  The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
+  Whispering to me I could hear;
+  I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
+  Brushed tenderly across my lips,
+  Laid gently on my sealed sight,
+  And all at once the heavy night
+  Fell from my eyes and I could see,--
+  A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
+  A last long line of silver rain,
+  A sky grown clear and blue again.
+  And as I looked a quickening gust
+  Of wind blew up to me and thrust
+  Into my face a miracle
+  Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,--
+  I know not how such things can be!--
+  I breathed my soul back into me.
+  Ah!  Up then from the ground sprang I
+  And hailed the earth with such a cry
+  As is not heard save from a man
+  Who has been dead, and lives again.
+  About the trees my arms I wound;
+  Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
+  I raised my quivering arms on high;
+  I laughed and laughed into the sky,
+  Till at my throat a strangling sob
+  Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
+  Sent instant tears into my eyes;
+  O God, I cried, no dark disguise
+  Can e'er hereafter hide from me
+  Thy radiant identity!
+  Thou canst not move across the grass
+  But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
+  Nor speak, however silently,
+  But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
+  I know the path that tells Thy way
+  Through the cool eve of every day;
+  God, I can push the grass apart
+  And lay my finger on Thy heart!
+
+  The world stands out on either side
+  No wider than the heart is wide;
+  Above the world is stretched the sky,--
+  No higher than the soul is high.
+  The heart can push the sea and land
+  Farther away on either hand;
+  The soul can split the sky in two,
+  And let the face of God shine through.
+  But East and West will pinch the heart
+  That can not keep them pushed apart;
+  And he whose soul is flat--the sky
+  Will cave in on him by and by.
+
+
+
+
+  Interim
+
+
+  The room is full of you!--As I came in
+  And closed the door behind me, all at once
+  A something in the air, intangible,
+  Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!--
+
+  Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
+  Each other room's dear personality.
+  The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,--
+  The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death--
+  Has strangled that habitual breath of home
+  Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
+  And wheresoe'er I look is hideous change.
+  Save here.  Here 'twas as if a weed-choked gate
+  Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped
+  Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange,
+  Sweet garden of a thousand years ago
+  And suddenly thought, "I have been here before!"
+
+  You are not here.  I know that you are gone,
+  And will not ever enter here again.
+  And yet it seems to me, if I should speak,
+  Your silent step must wake across the hall;
+  If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes
+  Would kiss me from the door.--So short a time
+  To teach my life its transposition to
+  This difficult and unaccustomed key!--
+  The room is as you left it; your last touch--
+  A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself
+  As saintly--hallows now each simple thing;
+  Hallows and glorifies, and glows between
+  The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light.
+
+  There is your book, just as you laid it down,
+  Face to the table,--I cannot believe
+  That you are gone!--Just then it seemed to me
+  You must be here.  I almost laughed to think
+  How like reality the dream had been;
+  Yet knew before I laughed, and so was still.
+  That book, outspread, just as you laid it down!
+  Perhaps you thought, "I wonder what comes next,
+  And whether this or this will be the end";
+  So rose, and left it, thinking to return.
+
+  Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passed
+  Out of the room, rocked silently a while
+  Ere it again was still. When you were gone
+  Forever from the room, perhaps that chair,
+  Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while,
+  Silently, to and fro. . .
+
+  And here are the last words your fingers wrote,
+  Scrawled in broad characters across a page
+  In this brown book I gave you. Here your hand,
+  Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.
+  Here with a looping knot you crossed a "t",
+  And here another like it, just beyond
+  These two eccentric "e's".  You were so small,
+  And wrote so brave a hand!
+                           How strange it seems
+  That of all words these are the words you chose!
+  And yet a simple choice; you did not know
+  You would not write again.  If you had known--
+  But then, it does not matter,--and indeed
+  If you had known there was so little time
+  You would have dropped your pen and come to me
+  And this page would be empty, and some phrase
+  Other than this would hold my wonder now.
+  Yet, since you could not know, and it befell
+  That these are the last words your fingers wrote,
+  There is a dignity some might not see
+  In this, "I picked the first sweet-pea to-day."
+  To-day!  Was there an opening bud beside it
+  You left until to-morrow?--O my love,
+  The things that withered,--and you came not back!
+  That day you filled this circle of my arms
+  That now is empty.  (O my empty life!)
+  That day--that day you picked the first sweet-pea,--
+  And brought it in to show me!  I recall
+  With terrible distinctness how the smell
+  Of your cool gardens drifted in with you.
+  I know, you held it up for me to see
+  And flushed because I looked not at the flower,
+  But at your face; and when behind my look
+  You saw such unmistakable intent
+  You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.
+  (You were the fairest thing God ever made,
+  I think.)  And then your hands above my heart
+  Drew down its stem into a fastening,
+  And while your head was bent I kissed your hair.
+  I wonder if you knew.  (Beloved hands!
+  Somehow I cannot seem to see them still.
+  Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust
+  In your bright hair.)  What is the need of Heaven
+  When earth can be so sweet?--If only God
+  Had let us love,--and show the world the way!
+  Strange cancellings must ink th' eternal books
+  When love-crossed-out will bring the answer right!
+  That first sweet-pea!  I wonder where it is.
+  It seems to me I laid it down somewhere,
+  And yet,--I am not sure. I am not sure,
+  Even, if it was white or pink; for then
+  'Twas much like any other flower to me,
+  Save that it was the first.  I did not know,
+  Then, that it was the last.  If I had known--
+  But then, it does not matter.  Strange how few,
+  After all's said and done, the things that are
+  Of moment.
+       Few indeed!  When I can make
+  Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
+  "I had you and I have you now no more."
+  There, there it dangles,--where's the little truth
+  That can for long keep footing under that
+  When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
+  Here, let me write it down!  I wish to see
+  Just how a thing like that will look on paper!
+
+  "*I had you and I have you now no more*."
+
+  O little words, how can you run so straight
+  Across the page, beneath the weight you bear?
+  How can you fall apart, whom such a theme
+  Has bound together, and hereafter aid
+  In trivial expression, that have been
+  So hideously dignified?--Would God
+  That tearing you apart would tear the thread
+  I strung you on!  Would God--O God, my mind
+  Stretches asunder on this merciless rack
+  Of imagery!  O, let me sleep a while!
+  Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back
+  In that sweet summer afternoon with you.
+  Summer?  'Tis summer still by the calendar!
+  How easily could God, if He so willed,
+  Set back the world a little turn or two!
+  Correct its griefs, and bring its joys again!
+
+  We were so wholly one I had not thought
+  That we could die apart.  I had not thought
+  That I could move,--and you be stiff and still!
+  That I could speak,--and you perforce be dumb!
+  I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
+  In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
+  Your golden filaments in fair design
+  Across my duller fibre.  And to-day
+  The shining strip is rent; the exquisite
+  Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart
+  Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled
+  In the damp earth with you.  I have been torn
+  In two, and suffer for the rest of me.
+  What is my life to me?  And what am I
+  To life,--a ship whose star has guttered out?
+  A Fear that in the deep night starts awake
+  Perpetually, to find its senses strained
+  Against the taut strings of the quivering air,
+  Awaiting the return of some dread chord?
+
+  Dark, Dark, is all I find for metaphor;
+  All else were contrast,--save that contrast's wall
+  Is down, and all opposed things flow together
+  Into a vast monotony, where night
+  And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life,
+  Are synonyms.  What now--what now to me
+  Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers
+  That clutter up the world?  You were my song!
+  Now, let discord scream!  You were my flower!
+  Now let the world grow weeds!  For I shall not
+  Plant things above your grave--(the common balm
+  Of the conventional woe for its own wound!)
+  Amid sensations rendered negative
+  By your elimination stands to-day,
+  Certain, unmixed, the element of grief;
+  I sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth
+  With travesties of suffering, nor seek
+  To effigy its incorporeal bulk
+  In little wry-faced images of woe.
+
+  I cannot call you back; and I desire
+  No utterance of my immaterial voice.
+  I cannot even turn my face this way
+  Or that, and say, "My face is turned to you";
+  I know not where you are, I do not know
+  If Heaven hold you or if earth transmute,
+  Body and soul, you into earth again;
+  But this I know:--not for one second's space
+  Shall I insult my sight with visionings
+  Such as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed
+  Beholds, self-conjured, in the empty air.
+  Let the world wail!  Let drip its easy tears!
+  My sorrow shall be dumb!
+
+  --What do I say?
+  God! God!--God pity me!  Am I gone mad
+  That I should spit upon a rosary?
+  Am I become so shrunken?  Would to God
+  I too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch
+  Makes temporal the most enduring grief;
+  Though it must walk a while, as is its wont,
+  With wild lamenting!  Would I too might weep
+  Where weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths
+  For its new dead!  Not Truth, but Faith, it is
+  That keeps the world alive.  If all at once
+  Faith were to slacken,--that unconscious faith
+  Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone
+  Of all believing,--birds now flying fearless
+  Across would drop in terror to the earth;
+  Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins
+  Would tangle in the frantic hands of God
+  And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!
+
+  O God, I see it now, and my sick brain
+  Staggers and swoons!  How often over me
+  Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight
+  In which I see the universe unrolled
+  Before me like a scroll and read thereon
+  Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl
+  Dizzily round and round and round and round,
+  Like tops across a table, gathering speed
+  With every spin, to waver on the edge
+  One instant--looking over--and the next
+  To shudder and lurch forward out of sight--
+
+       *    *    *    *    *
+
+  Ah, I am worn out--I am wearied out--
+  It is too much--I am but flesh and blood,
+  And I must sleep.  Though you were dead again,
+  I am but flesh and blood and I must sleep.
+
+
+
+
+  The Suicide
+
+
+  "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
+  Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
+  And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
+  I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
+  That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
+  With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--
+  Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
+  As if spent passion were a holiday!
+  And now I go.  Nor threat, nor easy vow
+  Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
+  With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
+  Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
+  And know not where nor unto whom I go;
+  But that thou canst not follow me I know."
+
+  Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
+  My thought ran still, until I spake again:
+
+  "Ah, but I go not as I came,--no trace
+  Is mine to bear away of that old grace
+  I brought!  I have been heated in thy fires,
+  Bent by thy hands, fashioned to thy desires,
+  Thy mark is on me!  I am not the same
+  Nor ever more shall be, as when I came.
+  Ashes am I of all that once I seemed.
+  In me all's sunk that leapt, and all that dreamed
+  Is wakeful for alarm,--oh, shame to thee,
+  For the ill change that thou hast wrought in me,
+  Who laugh no more nor lift my throat to sing!
+  Ah, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing
+  To have about the house when I was grown
+  If thou hadst left my little joys alone!
+  I asked of thee no favor save this one:
+  That thou wouldst leave me playing in the sun!
+  And this thou didst deny, calling my name
+  Insistently, until I rose and came.
+  I saw the sun no more.--It were not well
+  So long on these unpleasant thoughts to dwell,
+  Need I arise to-morrow and renew
+  Again my hated tasks, but I am through
+  With all things save my thoughts and this one night,
+  So that in truth I seem already quite
+  Free and remote from thee,--I feel no haste
+  And no reluctance to depart; I taste
+  Merely, with thoughtful mien, an unknown draught,
+  That in a little while I shall have quaffed."
+
+  Thus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,
+  Looking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed
+  Before me one by one till once again
+  I set new words unto an old refrain:
+
+  "Treasures thou hast that never have been mine!
+  Warm lights in many a secret chamber shine
+  Of thy gaunt house, and gusts of song have blown
+  Like blossoms out to me that sat alone!
+  And I have waited well for thee to show
+  If any share were mine,--and now I go!
+  Nothing I leave, and if I naught attain
+  I shall but come into mine own again!"
+  Thus I to Life, and ceased, and spake no more,
+  But turning, straightway, sought a certain door
+  In the rear wall.  Heavy it was, and low
+  And dark,--a way by which none e'er would go
+  That other exit had, and never knock
+  Was heard thereat,--bearing a curious lock
+  Some chance had shown me fashioned faultily,
+  Whereof Life held content the useless key,
+  And great coarse hinges, thick and rough with rust,
+  Whose sudden voice across a silence must,
+  I knew, be harsh and horrible to hear,--
+  A strange door, ugly like a dwarf.--So near
+  I came I felt upon my feet the chill
+  Of acid wind creeping across the sill.
+  So stood longtime, till over me at last
+  Came weariness, and all things other passed
+  To make it room; the still night drifted deep
+  Like snow about me, and I longed for sleep.
+
+  But, suddenly, marking the morning hour,
+  Bayed the deep-throated bell within the tower!
+  Startled, I raised my head,--and with a shout
+  Laid hold upon the latch,--and was without.
+
+       *    *    *    *    *
+
+  Ah, long-forgotten, well-remembered road,
+  Leading me back unto my old abode,
+  My father's house!  There in the night I came,
+  And found them feasting, and all things the same
+  As they had been before.  A splendour hung
+  Upon the walls, and such sweet songs were sung
+  As, echoing out of very long ago,
+  Had called me from the house of Life, I know.
+  So fair their raiment shone I looked in shame
+  On the unlovely garb in which I came;
+  Then straightway at my hesitancy mocked:
+  "It is my father's house!" I said and knocked;
+  And the door opened.  To the shining crowd
+  Tattered and dark I entered, like a cloud,
+  Seeing no face but his; to him I crept,
+  And "Father!" I cried, and clasped his knees, and wept.
+  Ah, days of joy that followed!  All alone
+  I wandered through the house.  My own, my own,
+  My own to touch, my own to taste and smell,
+  All I had lacked so long and loved so well!
+  None shook me out of sleep, nor hushed my song,
+  Nor called me in from the sunlight all day long.
+
+  I know not when the wonder came to me
+  Of what my father's business might be,
+  And whither fared and on what errands bent
+  The tall and gracious messengers he sent.
+  Yet one day with no song from dawn till night
+  Wondering, I sat, and watched them out of sight.
+  And the next day I called; and on the third
+  Asked them if I might go,--but no one heard.
+  Then, sick with longing, I arose at last
+  And went unto my father,--in that vast
+  Chamber wherein he for so many years
+  Has sat, surrounded by his charts and spheres.
+  "Father," I said, "Father, I cannot play
+  The harp that thou didst give me, and all day
+  I sit in idleness, while to and fro
+  About me thy serene, grave servants go;
+  And I am weary of my lonely ease.
+  Better a perilous journey overseas
+  Away from thee, than this, the life I lead,
+  To sit all day in the sunshine like a weed
+  That grows to naught,--I love thee more than they
+  Who serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way.
+  Father, I beg of thee a little task
+  To dignify my days,--'tis all I ask
+  Forever, but forever, this denied,
+  I perish."
+            "Child," my father's voice replied,
+  "All things thy fancy hath desired of me
+  Thou hast received.  I have prepared for thee
+  Within my house a spacious chamber, where
+  Are delicate things to handle and to wear,
+  And all these things are thine.  Dost thou love song?
+  My minstrels shall attend thee all day long.
+  Or sigh for flowers?  My fairest gardens stand
+  Open as fields to thee on every hand.
+  And all thy days this word shall hold the same:
+  No pleasure shalt thou lack that thou shalt name.
+  But as for tasks--" he smiled, and shook his head;
+  "Thou hadst thy task, and laidst it by", he said.
+
+
+
+
+  God's World
+
+
+  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, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
+
+
+  Long have I known a glory in it all,
+            But never knew I this;
+            Here such a passion is
+  As stretcheth me apart,--Lord, I do fear
+  Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
+  My soul is all but out of me,--let fall
+  No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
+
+
+
+
+  Afternoon on a Hill
+
+
+  I will be the gladdest thing
+    Under the sun!
+  I will touch a hundred flowers
+    And not pick one.
+
+  I will look at cliffs and clouds
+    With quiet eyes,
+  Watch the wind bow down the grass,
+    And the grass rise.
+
+  And when lights begin to show
+    Up from the town,
+  I will mark which must be mine,
+    And then start down!
+
+
+
+
+  Sorrow
+
+
+  Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
+    Beats upon my heart.
+  People twist and scream in pain,--
+  Dawn will find them still again;
+  This has neither wax nor wane,
+    Neither stop nor start.
+
+  People dress and go to town;
+    I sit in my chair.
+  All my thoughts are slow and brown:
+  Standing up or sitting down
+  Little matters, or what gown
+    Or what shoes I wear.
+
+
+
+
+  Tavern
+
+
+  I'll keep a little tavern
+    Below the high hill's crest,
+  Wherein all grey-eyed people
+    May set them down and rest.
+
+  There shall be plates a-plenty,
+    And mugs to melt the chill
+  Of all the grey-eyed people
+    Who happen up the hill.
+
+  There sound will sleep the traveller,
+    And dream his journey's end,
+  But I will rouse at midnight
+    The falling fire to tend.
+
+  Aye, 'tis a curious fancy--
+    But all the good I know
+  Was taught me out of two grey eyes
+    A long time ago.
+
+
+
+
+  Ashes of 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!
+
+  Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
+    This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
+  But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,--
+    There's little use in anything as far as I can see.
+
+  Love has gone and left me,--and the neighbors knock and borrow,
+    And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
+  And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
+    There's this little street and this little house.
+
+
+
+
+  The Little Ghost
+
+
+  I knew her for a little ghost
+    That in my garden walked;
+  The wall is high--higher than most--
+    And the green gate was locked.
+
+  And yet I did not think of that
+    Till after she was gone--
+  I knew her by the broad white hat,
+    All ruffled, she had on.
+
+  By the dear ruffles round her feet,
+    By her small hands that hung
+  In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
+    Her gown's white folds among.
+
+  I watched to see if she would stay,
+    What she would do--and oh!
+  She looked as if she liked the way
+    I let my garden grow!
+
+  She bent above my favourite mint
+    With conscious garden grace,
+  She smiled and smiled--there was no hint
+    Of sadness in her face.
+
+  She held her gown on either side
+    To let her slippers show,
+  And up the walk she went with pride,
+    The way great ladies go.
+
+  And where the wall is built in new
+    And is of ivy bare
+  She paused--then opened and passed through
+    A gate that once was there.
+
+
+
+
+  Kin to Sorrow
+
+
+  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?
+  Am I kin to Sorrow?
+    Are we kin?
+  That so oft upon my door--
+    *Oh, come in*!
+
+
+
+
+  Three Songs of Shattering
+
+
+            I
+
+  The first rose on my rose-tree
+    Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
+  During sad days when to me
+            Nothing mattered.
+
+  Grief of grief has drained me clean;
+    Still it seems a pity
+  No one saw,--it must have been
+            Very pretty.
+
+
+            II
+
+  Let the little birds sing;
+    Let the little lambs play;
+  Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
+    But not in the old way!
+
+  I recall a place
+    Where a plum-tree grew;
+  There you lifted up your face,
+    And blossoms covered you.
+
+  If the little birds sing,
+    And the little lambs play,
+  Spring is here; and so 'tis spring--
+    But not in the old way!
+
+
+            III
+
+  All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
+    Ere spring was going--ah, spring is gone!
+  And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
+    Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
+
+  All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
+    Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
+  And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
+    And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!
+
+
+
+
+  The Shroud
+
+
+  Death, I say, my heart is bowed
+    Unto thine,--O mother!
+  This red gown will make a shroud
+    Good as any other!
+
+  (I, that would not wait to wear
+    My own bridal things,
+  In a dress dark as my hair
+    Made my answerings.
+
+  I, to-night, that till he came
+    Could not, could not wait,
+  In a gown as bright as flame
+    Held for them the gate.)
+
+  Death, I say, my heart is bowed
+    Unto thine,--O mother!
+  This red gown will make a shroud
+    Good as any other!
+
+
+
+
+  The Dream
+
+
+  Love, if I weep it will not matter,
+    And if you laugh I shall not care;
+  Foolish am I to think about it,
+    But it is good to feel you there.
+
+  Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
+    White and awful the moonlight reached
+  Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
+    There was a shutter loose,--it screeched!
+
+  Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--
+    I was afraid, and turned to you,
+  Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
+    And you were gone!  Cold, cold as dew,
+
+  Under my hand the moonlight lay!
+    Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
+  But if I weep it will not matter,--
+    Ah, it is good to feel you there!
+
+
+
+
+  Indifference
+
+
+  I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--
+    "I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;
+  But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some
+    As would let him in--and take him in with tears!" I said.
+  I lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,--
+    I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;
+  And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,
+    All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!
+
+
+
+
+  Witch-Wife
+
+
+  She is neither pink nor pale,
+    And she never will be all mine;
+  She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
+    And her mouth on a valentine.
+
+  She has more hair than she needs;
+    In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
+  And her voice is a string of colored beads,
+   Or steps leading into the sea.
+
+  She loves me all that she can,
+    And her ways to my ways resign;
+  But she was not made for any man,
+    And she never will be all mine.
+
+
+
+
+  Blight
+
+
+  Hard seeds of hate I planted
+    That should by now be grown,--
+  Rough stalks, and from thick stamens
+    A poisonous pollen blown,
+  And odors rank, unbreathable,
+    From dark corollas thrown!
+
+  At dawn from my damp garden
+    I shook the chilly dew;
+  The thin boughs locked behind me
+    That sprang to let me through;
+  The blossoms slept,--I sought a place
+    Where nothing lovely grew.
+
+  And there, when day was breaking,
+    I knelt and looked around:
+  The light was near, the silence
+    Was palpitant with sound;
+  I drew my hate from out my breast
+    And thrust it in the ground.
+
+  Oh, ye so fiercely tended,
+    Ye little seeds of hate!
+  I bent above your growing
+    Early and noon and late,
+  Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,--
+    I cannot rear ye straight!
+
+  The sun seeks out my garden,
+    No nook is left in shade,
+  No mist nor mold nor mildew
+    Endures on any blade,
+  Sweet rain slants under every bough:
+    Ye falter, and ye fade.
+
+
+
+
+  When the Year Grows Old
+
+
+  I cannot but remember
+    When the year grows old--
+  October--November--
+    How she disliked the cold!
+
+  She used to watch the swallows
+    Go down across the sky,
+  And turn from the window
+    With a little sharp sigh.
+
+  And often when the brown leaves
+    Were brittle on the ground,
+  And the wind in the chimney
+    Made a melancholy sound,
+
+  She had a look about her
+    That I wish I could forget--
+  The look of a scared thing
+    Sitting in a net!
+
+  Oh, beautiful at nightfall
+    The soft spitting snow!
+  And beautiful the bare boughs
+    Rubbing to and fro!
+
+  But the roaring of the fire,
+    And the warmth of fur,
+  And the boiling of the kettle
+    Were beautiful to her!
+
+  I cannot but remember
+    When the year grows old--
+  October--November--
+    How she disliked the cold!
+
+
+
+
+  Sonnets
+
+
+            I
+
+  Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
+    Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
+    Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
+  Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
+  From left to right, not knowing where to go,
+    I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
+    Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
+  So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.
+
+  Like him who day by day unto his draught
+    Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
+  Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
+  Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
+    Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
+  I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.
+
+
+            II
+
+  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;
+  The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
+    And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
+    But last year's bitter loving must remain
+  Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
+
+  There are a hundred places where I fear
+    To go,--so with his memory they brim!
+  And entering with relief some quiet place
+  Where never fell his foot or shone his face
+  I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
+    And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
+
+
+            III
+
+  Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
+    And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
+    And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
+  Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
+  The summer through, and each departing wing,
+    And all the nests that the bared branches show,
+    And all winds that in any weather blow,
+  And all the storms that the four seasons bring.
+
+  You go no more on your exultant feet
+    Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
+  Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
+    Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,--
+  But you were something more than young and sweet
+    And fair,--and the long year remembers you.
+
+
+            IV
+
+  Not in this chamber only at my birth--
+    When the long hours of that mysterious night
+    Were over, and the morning was in sight--
+  I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
+  I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
+    And never shall one room contain me quite
+    Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
+  Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
+
+  So is no warmth for me at any fire
+    To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
+  I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
+  At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
+  And straighten back in weariness, and long
+    To gather up my little gods and go.
+
+
+            V
+
+  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)
+  A hurrying man--who happened to be you--
+    At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
+  I should not cry aloud--I could not cry
+    Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place--
+  I should but watch the station lights rush by
+    With a more careful interest on my face,
+  Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
+  Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
+
+
+            VI     Bluebeard
+
+  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
+  The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
+    For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
+  But only what you see. . . .  Look yet again--
+    An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
+  Yet this alone out of my life I kept
+    Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
+  And you did so profane me when you crept
+    Unto the threshold of this room to-night
+  That I must never more behold your face.
+    This now is yours.  I seek another place.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Renascence and Other Poems, by 
+Edna St. Vincent Millay
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 109 ***