Sonnet IV

    Not in this chamber only at my birth--
        When the long hours of that mysterious night
        Were over, and the morning was in sight--
    I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
    I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
        And never shall one room contain me quite
        Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
    Child of all mothers, native of the earth.

    So is no warmth for me at any fire
        To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
    I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
    At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
    And straighten back in weariness, and long
        To gather up my little gods and go.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets V

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Memorial To D. C.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

The Poet And His Book

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Portrait by a Neighbor

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

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Sonnets VII

        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

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

Sonnets XI

        As to some lovely temple, tenantless
        Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
        Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
        Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
        Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
        The worshiper returns, and those who pass
        Marvel him crying on a name that was,--
        So is it now with me in my distress.
        Your body was a temple to Delight;
        Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
        Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
        Here might I hope to find you day or night,
        And here I come to look for you, my love,
        Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet III

    Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
        And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
        And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
    Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
    The summer through, and each departing wing,
        And all the nests that the bared branches show,
        And all winds that in any weather blow,
    And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

    You go no more on your exultant feet
        Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
    Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
        Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,--
    But you were something more than young and sweet
        And fair,--and the long year remembers you.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets IV

        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 color and the features, every one,
        The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
        But in your day this moment is the sun
        Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets IX

        Let you not say of me when I am old,
        In pretty worship of my withered hands
        Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
        Of such a life as mine run red and gold
        Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold,
        Here walketh passionless age!"--for there expands
        A curious superstition in these lands,
        And by its leave some weightless tales are told.

        In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
        I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;
        Impious no less in ruin than in strength,
        When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,
        Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site
        The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer."

Edna St. Vincent Millay