Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

All Poems Original Poems Translations

« ‹ 1 2 3 4 5 › »

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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Betrothal

Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,

And love me if you like.

I shall not hear the door shut

Nor the knocker strike.

Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,

And wed me if you will.

I'd make a man a good wife,

Sensible and still.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver

“Son,” said my mother,

When I was knee-high,

“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,

And not a rag have I.

“There’s nothing in the house

To make a boy breeches,

Nor shears to cut a cloth with,

Nor thread to take stitches.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Travel

The railroad track is miles away,

And the day is loud with voices speaking,

Yet there isn't a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,

But I see its cinders red on the sky,

And hear its engine steaming.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

City Trees

The trees along this city street

Save for the traffic and the trains,

Would make a sound as thin and sweet

As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade

Out of a shower, undoubtedly

Would hear such music as is made

Upon a country tree.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Wild Swans

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.

And what did I see I had not seen before?

Only a question less or a question more;

Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,

House without air, I leave you and lock your door.

Wild swans, come over the town, come over

The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Euclid Alone

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.

Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,

And lay them prone upon the earth and cease

To ponder on themselves, the while they stare

At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere

In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese

Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release

From dusty bondage into luminous air.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Prayer To Persephone

Be to her, Persephone,

All the things I might not be:

Take her head upon your knee.

She that was so proud and wild,

Flippant, arrogant and free,

She that had no need of me,

Is a little lonely child

Lost in Hell,—Persephone,

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay