Pastoral

        If it were only still!--
        With far away the shrill
        Crying of a cock;
        Or the shaken bell
        From a cow's throat
        Moving through the bushes;
        Or the soft shock
        Of wizened apples falling
        From an old tree
        In a forgotten orchard
        Upon the hilly rock!

        Oh, grey hill,
        Where the grazing herd
        Licks the purple blossom,
        Crops the spiky weed!
        Oh, stony pasture,
        Where the tall mullein
        Stands up so sturdy
        On its little seed!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets X

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

The Unexplorer

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Sonnets V

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

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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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Old Farm

Dormered and verandaed, cool,
Locust-girdled, on the hill;
Stained with weather-wear, and dull-
Streak'd with lichens; every sill
Thresholding the beautiful;
I can see it standing there,
Brown above the woodland deep,
Wrapped in lights of lavender,
By the warm wind rocked asleep,
Violet shadows everywhere.
I remember how the Spring,
Liberal-lapped, bewildered its
Acred orchards, murmuring,
Kissed to blossom; budded bits
Where the wood-thrush came to sing.
Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,
Like a beggermaid, adown
The wet woodland; where the god,
With the bright sun for a crown
And the firmament for rod,
Met her; clothed her; wedded her;
Her Cophetua: when, lo!
All the hill, one breathing blur,
Burst in beauty; gleam and glo...

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The Little Hill

        OH, here the air is sweet and still,
            And soft's the grass to lie on;
        And far away's the little hill
            They took for Christ to die on.

        And there's a hill across the brook,
            And down the brook's another;
        But, oh, the little hill they took,--
            I think I am its mother!

        The moon that saw Gethsemane,
            I watch it rise and set:
        It has so many things to see,
            They help it to forget.

        But little hills that sit at home
            So many hundred years,
        Remember Greece, remember Rome,
            Remember Mary's tears.

        And far away in Palestine,
            Sadder than any other,
        Grieves still t...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Old Farm

Dormered and verandaed, cool,
Locust-girdled, on the hill;
Stained with weather-wear, and dull-
Streak'd with lichens; every sill
Thresholding the beautiful;

I can see it standing there,
Brown above the woodland deep,
Wrapped in lights of lavender,
By the warm wind rocked asleep,
Violet shadows everywhere.

I remember how the Spring,
Liberal-lapped, bewildered its
Acred orchards, murmuring,
Kissed to blossom; budded bits
Where the wood-thrush came to sing.

Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,
Like a beggermaid, adown
The wet woodland; where the god,
With the bright sun for a crown
And the firmament for rod,

Met her; clothed her; wedded her;
Her Cophetua: when, lo!
All the hill, one breathing blur,
Burst ...

Madison Julius Cawein

Journey

        Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
        And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
        Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired
        Of passing pleasant places!    All my life,
        Following Care along the dusty road,
        Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
        Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
        Tugged ever, and I passed.    All my life long
        Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
        And now I fain would lie in this long grass
        And close my eyes.
            Yet onward!
                        Cat birds call
        Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
        Are guttural.    Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
        Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
        Only my he...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

An Autumn Landscape

No wind there is that either pipes or moans;
The fields are cold and still; the sky
Is covered with a blue-gray sheet
Of motionless cloud; and at my feet
The river, curling softly by,
Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones.

Along the chill green slope that dips and heaves
The road runs rough and silent, lined
With plum-trees, misty and blue-gray,
And poplars pallid as the day,
In masses spectral, undefined,
Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves.

And on beside the river's sober edge
A long fresh field lies black. Beyond,
Low thickets gray and reddish stand,
Stroked white with birch; and near at hand,
Over a little steel-smooth pond,
Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge.

Across a waste and solitary rise

Archibald Lampman