First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay

First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light.



The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library Classics)

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.





The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library Classics)

i will go there, to millay

sometime after a.r. shapiro

pardon me, dear friend, for this word i've to say
about a wondrous place where i've just been.
an estate, where art folks escape their malaise—

a spring for form, an altar for grace—they assay
the hallow place that once inspired a queen.
these art folks go there for dear-somethings to say.

they make beauty with paint, prose and poetry—
genres d'art more saintly than our heroine—
i think you should go there, to mill away.

yes go where artists, unbound by time, pray
at happy hours for a powerful reign,
and you will find ample words in your play.

my friend, i believe you are in a like way,
and flourish best when you let beauty govern.
that is why i bid you, go there to Millay's.

it's clear—while time constrains we all are gay
for cures to our pains. oh! this place i've just been
dear friend—trust, the only words you should say
then are plain: "i will go there, to millay."