Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – Edna St. Vincent Millay – Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

In English

Afternoon on a Hill
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers … Continue Reading …

Alms
My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love, … Continue Reading …

And you as well must die, beloved dust (Sonnets)
And you as well must die, beloved dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, … Continue Reading …

As to some lovely temple, tenantless (Sonnet)
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass … Continue Reading …

Ashes of Life
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! … Continue Reading …

Assault
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone … Continue Reading …

Blight
Hard seeds of hate I planted
That should by now be grown,—
Rough stalks, and from thick stamens … Continue Reading …

Bluebeard (Sonnet)
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid, … Continue Reading …

Burial
Mine is a body that should die at sea!
And have for a grave, instead of a grave
Six feet deep and the length of me, … Continue Reading …

Cherish you then the hope I shall forget (Sonnet)
Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
At length, my lord, Pieria?—put away
For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay, … Continue Reading …

City Trees
The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet … Continue Reading …

Daphne
Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree. … Continue Reading …

Doubt no more that Oberon
Doubt no more that Oberon—
Never doubt that Pan
Lived, and played a reed, and ran … Continue Reading …

Ebb
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge … Continue Reading …

Eel-Grass
No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay, … Continue Reading …

Elaine
Oh, come again to Astolat!
I will not ask you to be kind.
And you may go when you will go, … Continue Reading …

Elegy before Death
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas … Continue Reading …

Exiled
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people, … Continue Reading …

God’s World
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise! … Continue Reading …

Grown-up
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, … Continue Reading …

Humoresque
“Heaven bless the babe!” they said;“
What queer books she must have read!”
(Love, by whom I was beguiled, … Continue Reading …

I shall forget you presently, my dear (Sonnet)
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year, … Continue Reading …

I think I should have loved you presently (Sonnet)
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see, … Continue Reading …

If I should learn, in some quite casual way (Sonnet)
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, … Continue Reading …

Indifference
I said,—for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,—
“I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed; … Continue Reading …

Inland
People that build their houses inland,
People that buy a plot of ground
Shaped like a house, and build a house there, … Continue Reading …

Into the golden vessel of great song (Sonnet)
Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest; … Continue Reading …

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 … Continue Reading …

Kin to Sorrow
Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door— … Continue Reading …

Lament
Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats … Continue Reading …

Let you not say of me when I am old (Sonnets)
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 … Continue Reading …

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts (Sonnet)
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And drag me at your chariot till I die,—
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!— … Continue Reading …

Low-Tide
These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green, … Continue Reading …

Mariposa
Butterflies are white and blue
In this field we wander through.
Suffer me to take your hand. … Continue Reading …

Memorial to D. C.
Oh, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes … Continue Reading …

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring (Sonnet)
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 … Continue Reading …

My candle burns at both ends
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night; … Continue Reading …

No rose that in a garden ever grew (Sonnet)
No rose that in a garden ever grew,
In Homer’s or in Omar’s or in mine,
Though buried under centuries of fine … Continue Reading …

Not in this chamber only at my birth (Sonnet)
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 … Continue Reading …

Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter (Sonnet)
Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
We drenched the altars of Love’s sacred grove,
Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after … Continue Reading …

Ode to Silence
Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul,
Grave Silence, lovelier … Continue Reading …

Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this (Sonnet)
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, … Continue Reading …

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow! (Sonnet)
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love’s self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now: … Continue Reading …

Once more into my arid days like dew (Sonnet)
Once more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, … Continue Reading …

Only until this cigarette is ended (Sonnet)
Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall, … Continue Reading …

Passer Mortuus Est
Death devours all lovely things;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,—presently … Continue Reading …

Pastoral
If it were only still!—
With far away the shrill
Crying of a cock; … Continue Reading …

Portrait by a Neighbour
Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her … Continue Reading …

Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— … Continue Reading …

Renascence
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way, … Continue Reading …

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

She is Overheard Singing
Oh, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,— … Continue Reading …

Song of a Second April
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs, … Continue Reading …

Sorrow
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,— … Continue Reading …

Spring
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness … Continue Reading …

Tavern
I’ll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill’s crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people … Continue Reading …

The Bean-Stalk
Ho, Giant! This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,—but it’s lovely, up so high! … Continue Reading …

The Blue-Flag in the Bog
God had called us, and we came;
Our loved Earth to ashes left;
Heaven was a neighbour’s house, … Continue Reading …

The Death of Autumn
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like agèd warriors westward, tragic, thinned … Continue Reading …

The Dream
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it, … Continue Reading …

The Little Ghost
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most— … Continue Reading …

The Merry Maid
Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air, … Continue Reading …

The Penitent
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom … Continue Reading …

The Philosopher
And what are you that, wanting you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days … Continue Reading …

The Poet and his Book
Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath … Continue Reading …

The Shroud
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,—O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud … Continue Reading …

The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge
What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water, … Continue Reading …

The Unexplorer
There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once—she said … Continue Reading …

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no (Sonnets)
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,—I can bear … Continue Reading …

Three Songs of Shattering
The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me … Continue Reading …

Thursday
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday— … Continue Reading …

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied (Sonnets)
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain; … Continue Reading …

To a Poet that Died Young
Minstrel, what have you to do
With this man that, after you,
Sharing not your happy fate, … Continue Reading …

To S. M
I am not willing you should go
Into the earth, where Helen went;
She is awake by now, I know. … Continue Reading …

To the Not Impossible Him
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot … Continue Reading …

Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day … Continue Reading …

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend (Sonnet)
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,—but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow … Continue Reading …

Weeds
White with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky!—
Life is a quest and love a quarrel— … Continue Reading …

When I too long have looked upon your face (Sonnet)
When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place, … Continue Reading …

When the Year Grows Old
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November— … Continue Reading …

Wild Swans
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more; … Continue Reading …

Witch-Wife
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, … Continue Reading …

Wraith
“Thin Rain, whom are you haunting,
That you haunt my door?”—
Surely it is not I she’s wanting; … Continue Reading …

Bilingual

American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – Edna St. Vincent Millay – Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay