Poems:
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;
Other Poems in the collection by Edna St.Vincent Millay
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Renascence
and Other Poems
by Edna St.Vincent Millay
[1917]
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.
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