



Produced by Alan Light.  HTML version by Al Haines.









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