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!
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Renascence, and other poems, 1912 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Second April, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? –
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
–Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.
There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.
~~ Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1882-1950) from Flowers of Evil, 1936
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
L'Invitation au Voyage
Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l’ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l’âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
–Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
~~ Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) from Les Fleur du Mal, 1857 [Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
"L'Invitation au Voyage" animation by David Gautier
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
And men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,– only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Second April, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
No hawk hangs over in this air:
The urgent snow is everywhere.
The wing adroiter than a sail
Must lean away from such a gale,
Abandoning its straight intent,
Or else expose tough ligament
And tender flesh to what before
Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.
Forceless upon our backs there fall
Infrequent flakes hexagonal,
Devised in many a curious style
To charm our safety for a while,
Where close to earth like mice we go
Under the horizontal snow.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Poetry, May 1939
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.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Second April, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Second April, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.
~~ Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1930) fromFatal Interview, 1931
It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it’s little I care;
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere.
It’s little I know what’s in my heart,
What’s in my mind it’s little I know,
But there’s that in me must up and start,
And it’s little I care where my feet go.
I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Nor the roof of a house, nor the eyes of a face.
I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never to stir again,
On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.
But dump or dock, where the path I take
Brings up, it’s little enough I care;
And it’s little I’d mind the fuss they’ll make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.
“Is something the matter, dear,” she said, “That you sit at your work so silently?” “No, mother, no, ’twas a knot in my thread. There goes the kettle, I’ll make the tea."
--- Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) fromThe Harp-Weaver, and other poems, 1923
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
--- Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from The Harp-Weaver, and other poems, 1923
Only until this cigarette is ended
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu, — farewell! — the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The colour and the features, every one.
The words not ever, and the smile not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Second April, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
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 today 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 or how to treat the hair.
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Renascence, and other poems, 1917
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
