Songs Of Shattering I

    The first rose on my rose-tree
        Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
    During sad days when to me
            Nothing mattered.

    Grief of grief has drained me clean;
        Still it seems a pity
    No one saw,--it must have been
            Very pretty.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets VI

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Elegy Before Death

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Alms

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

She Is Overheard Singing

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

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Songs Of Shattering III

    All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
        Ere spring was going--ah, spring is gone!
    And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
        Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.

    All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
        Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
    And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
        And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Songs Of Shattering II

    Let the little birds sing;
        Let the little lambs play;
    Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
        But not in the old way!

    I recall a place
        Where a plum-tree grew;
    There you lifted up your face,
        And blossoms covered you.

    If the little birds sing,
        And the little lambs play,
    Spring is here; and so 'tis spring--
        But not in the old way!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets V

        Once more into my arid days like dew,
        Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
        Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
        A treacherous messenger, the thought of you
        Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
        Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
        Long since to be but just one other mound
        Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
        And once again, and wiser in no wise,
        I chase your colored phantom on the air,
        And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise
        And stumble pitifully on to where,
        Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,
        Once more I clasp,--and there is nothing there.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Elegy Before Death

        There will be rose and rhododendron
            When you are dead and under ground;
        Still will be heard from white syringas
            Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;

        Still will the tamaracks be raining
            After the rain has ceased, and still
        Will there be robins in the stubble,
            Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.

        Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
            Nothing will know that you are gone,
        Saving alone some sullen plough-land
            None but yourself sets foot upon;

        Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
            Nothing will know that you are dead,--
        These, and perhaps a useless wagon
            Standing beside some tumbled shed.

 ...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Elegy

        Let them bury your big eyes
        In the secret earth securely,
        Your thin fingers, and your fair,
        Soft, indefinite-colored hair,--
        All of these in some way, surely,
        From the secret earth shall rise;
        Not for these I sit and stare,
        Broken and bereft completely;
        Your young flesh that sat so neatly
        On your little bones will sweetly
        Blossom in the air.

        But your voice,--never the rushing
        Of a river underground,
        Not the rising of the wind
        In the trees before the rain,
        Not the woodcock's watery call,
        Not the note the white-throat utters,
        Not the feet of children pushing
        Yellow leaves along the gutters
  ...

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.
    All my thoughts are slow and brown:
    Standing up or sitting down
    Little matters, or what gown
        Or what shoes I wear.

Edna St. Vincent Millay