Renascence and Other Poems | Page 3

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Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Contents:
Renascence
All I could see from where I stood
Interim
The room is full of you! -- As I came in
The Suicide
"Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
God's World
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Afternoon on a Hill
I will be the gladdest thing
Sorrow
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Tavern
I'll keep a little tavern
Ashes of Life
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
The Little Ghost
I knew her for a little ghost
Kin to Sorrow
Am I kin to Sorrow,
Three Songs of Shattering
I
The first rose on my rose-tree
II
Let the little birds sing;
III
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
The Shroud
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
The Dream
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
Indifference
I said, -- for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come, --
Witch-Wife
She is neither pink nor pale,
Blight
Hard seeds of hate I planted
When the Year Grows Old
I cannot but remember
Sonnets
I
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs, -- no,
II
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
III
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
IV
Not in this chamber only at my birth --
V
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
VI Bluebeard
This door you might not open, and you did;
Renascence and Other Poems
Renascence
All I could see from where I stood?Was three long mountains and a wood;?I turned and looked another way,?And saw three islands in a bay.?So with my eyes I traced the line?Of the horizon, thin and fine,?Straight around till I was come?Back to where I'd started from;?And all I saw from where I stood?Was three long mountains and a wood.?Over these things I could not see;?These were the things that bounded me;?And I could touch them with my hand,?Almost, I thought, from where I stand.?And all at once things seemed so small?My breath came short, and scarce at all.?But, sure, the sky is big, I said;?Miles and miles above my head;?So here upon my back I'll lie?And look my fill into the sky.?And so I looked, and, after all,?The sky was not so very tall.?The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,?And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!?The sky, I thought, is not so grand;?I 'most could touch it with my hand!?And reaching up my hand to try,?I screamed to feel it touch the sky.?I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity?Came down and settled over me;?Forced back my scream into my chest,?Bent back my arm upon my breast,?And, pressing of the Undefined?The definition on my mind,?Held up before my eyes a glass?Through which my shrinking sight did pass?Until it seemed I must behold?Immensity made manifold;?Whispered to me a word whose sound?Deafened the air for worlds around,?And brought unmuffled to my ears?The gossiping of friendly spheres,?The creaking of the tented sky,?The ticking of Eternity.?I saw and heard, and knew at last?The How and Why of all things, past,?And present, and forevermore.?The Universe, cleft to the core,?Lay open to my probing sense?That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence?But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck?At the great wound, and could not pluck?My lips away till I had drawn?All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!?For my omniscience paid I toll?In infinite remorse of soul.?All sin was of my sinning, all?Atoning mine, and mine the gall?Of all regret. Mine was the weight?Of every brooded wrong, the hate?That stood behind each envious thrust,?Mine every greed, mine every lust.?And all the while for every grief,?Each suffering, I craved relief?With individual desire, --?Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire?About a thousand people crawl;?Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!?A man was starving in Capri;?He moved his eyes and looked at me;?I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,?And knew his hunger as my own.?I saw at sea a great fog bank?Between two ships that struck and sank;?A thousand screams the heavens smote;?And every scream tore through my throat.?No hurt I did not feel, no death?That was not mine; mine each last breath?That, crying, met an answering cry?From the compassion that was I.?All suffering mine, and mine its rod;?Mine, pity like the pity of God.?Ah, awful weight! Infinity?Pressed down upon the finite Me!?My anguished spirit, like a bird,?Beating against my lips I heard;?Yet lay the weight so close about?There was no room for it without.?And so beneath the weight lay I?And suffered death, but could not die.
Long had I lain thus, craving death,?When quietly the earth beneath?Gave way, and inch by inch, so great?At last had grown the crushing weight,?Into the earth I sank till I?Full six feet under ground did lie,?And sank no more, -- there is no weight?Can follow here, however great.?From off my breast I felt it roll,?And as it went my tortured soul?Burst forth and fled in such a gust?That all about me swirled the dust.
Deep in the earth I rested now;?Cool is its hand upon the brow?And soft