Renascence and Other Poems | Page 3

royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you
can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association /
Illinois Benedictine College".
This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney
Internet
([email protected]
); TEL: (212-254-5093)
*END*THE
SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
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