Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems

edited by j.d. mcclatchy

Introduction

I

from Renascence and Other Poems (1917)

Renascence

Interim

Afternoon on a Hill

Witch-Wife

When the Year Grows Old

"Time does not bring relief; you all have lied"

"If I should learn, in some quite casual way"

Bluebeard

from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920)

First Fig

Second Fig

Recuerdo

To the Not Impossible Him

Grown-up

Daphne

Midnight Oil

The Philosopher

"I think I should have loved you presently"

"I shall forget you presently, my dear"

from Second April (1921)

Eel-Grass

Elegy Before Death

Weeds

Passer Mortuus Est

Alms

Inland

Ebb

from Memorial to D. C.

I. Epitaph

IV. Dirge

V. Elegy

"Only until this cigarette is ended"

"Once more into my arid days like dew"

"When I too long have looked upon your face"

"And you as well must die, beloved dust"

"As to some lovely temple, tenantless"

Wild Swans

from The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923)

Autumn Chant

Feast

The Betrothal

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver

Never May the Fruit Be Plucked

Hyacinth

To One Who Might Have Borne a Message

"Love is not blind. I see with single eye"

"Pity me not because the light of day"

"Here is a wound that never will heal, I know"

"Your face is like a chamber where a king"

"I, being born a woman and distressed"

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why"

"How healthily their feet upon the floor"

"Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare"

Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree

from The Buck in the Snow (1928)

To the Wife of a Sick Friend

To a Friend Estranged from Me

The Buck in the Snow

Evening on Lesbos

Dirge Without Music

Lethe

To Inez Mulholland

To Jesus on His Birthday

"Not that it matters, not that my heart's cry"

II

Aria da Capo (1919)

from The King's Henchman (1927)

ýlfrida's Song

Love Scene

translations from Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire (1936)

The Fang

Parisian Dream

Invitation to the Voyage

The Old Servant

Late January

The King of the Rainy Country

Mists and Rains

A Memory

III

Fatal Interview (1931)

IV

from Wine from These Grapes (1934)

Valentine

In the Grave No Flower

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

The Solid Sprite Who Stands Alone

Spring in the Garden

Sonnet ("Time, that renews the tissues of this frame")

Desolation Dreamed Of

On the Wide Heath

Two Sonnets in Memory

Conscientious Objector

Epitaph for the Race of Man

from Conversation at Midnight (1937)

"Thus are our altars polluted; nor may we flee. The walls are strong"

"The mind thrust out of doors"

from Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939)

The Snow Storm

Not So Far as the Forest

"Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!"

The True Encounter

Czecho-Slovakia

Underground System

Two Voices

This Dusky Faith

To a Young Poet

To Elinor Wylie

"Now that the west is washed of clouds and clear"

"I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex"

"Thou famished grave, I will not fill thee yet"

"Not only love plus awful grief"

from Make Bright the Arrows (1940)

"Make bright the arrows"

An Eclipse of the Sun Is Predicted

"Gentlemen Cry, Peace!"

"I must not die of pity; I must live"

from The Murder of Lidice (1942)

"They marched them out to the public square"

from Mine the Harvest (1954)

Small Hands, Relinquish All

Ragged Island

"To whom the house of Montagu"

"The courage that my mother had"

Armenonville

Dream of Saba

For Warmth Alone, for Shelter Only

"Black hair you'd say she had"

Steepletop

"Look how the bittersweet with lazy muscle moves aside"

"Those hours when happy hours were my estate"

"Not to me, less lavish-though my dreams have been splendid"

"Tranquility at length, when autumn comes"

Sonnet in Dialectic

"It is the fashion now to wave aside"

"Admetus, from my marrow's core I do"

"I will put Chaos into fourteen lines"

"And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you"

"Felicity of Grief!-even Death being kind"

"If I die solvent-die, that is to say"

Biographical Note

Note on the Texts

Notes

Index of Titles and First Lines