Edna St. Vincent Millay at Vassar College in 1914, photographed by Arnold Genthe
A dear friend sent this poem to me...now I'm sharing it with all of you. Enjoy!
xoKristen
Renascence
Edna St.
Vincent Millay
ALL I could see from
where I stood
Was three long mountains
and a wood;
I turned and looked the
other 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 its breast
beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly
dead.
And all at once, and over
all
The pitying rain began to
fall;
I lay and heard each
pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatchèd
roof,
And seemed to love the
sound far more
Than ever I had done
before.
For rain it hath a
friendly sound
To one who’s six feet
under ground;
And scarce the friendly
voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet
place.
The rain, I said, is kind
to come
And speak to me in my new
home.
I would I were alive
again
To kiss the fingers of
the rain,
To drink into my eyes the
shine
Of every slanting silver
line,
To catch the freshened,
fragrant breeze
From drenched and
dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will
be done,
And then the broad face
of the sun
Will laugh above the
rain-soaked earth
Until the world with
answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each
round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from
its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it; buried
here,
While overhead the sky
grows clear
And blue again after the
storm?
O, multi-colored,
multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never
see
Again! Spring-silver,
autumn-gold,
That I shall never more
behold!
Sleeping your myriad
magics through,
Close-sepulchred away
from you!
O God, I cried, give me
new birth,
And put me back upon the
earth!
Upset each cloud’s
gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain,
down-poured
In one big torrent, set
me free,
Washing my grave away
from me!
I ceased; and through the
breathless hush
That answered me, the
far-off rush
Of herald wings came
whispering
Like music down the
vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer,
and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s
whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds
reared on high
And plunged in terror
down the sky,
And the big rain in one
black wave
Fell from the sky and
struck my grave.
I know not how such
things can be;
I only know there came to
me
A fragrance such as never
clings
To aught save happy
living things;
A sound as of some joyous
elf
Singing sweet songs to
please himself,
And, through and over
everything,
A sense of glad
awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my
ear,
Whispering to me I could
hear;
I felt the rain’s cool
finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across
my lips,
Laid gently on my sealèd
sight,
And all at once the heavy
night
Fell from my eyes and I
could see,—
A drenched and dripping
apple-tree,
A last long line of
silver rain,
A sky grown clear and
blue again.
And as I looked a
quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and
thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and
with the smell,—
I know not how such
things can be!—
I breathed my soul back
into me.
Ah! Up then from the
ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with
such a cry
As is not heard save from
a man
Who has been dead, and
lives again.
About the trees my arms I
wound;
Like one gone mad I
hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering
arms on high;
I laughed and laughed
into the sky,
Till at my throat a
strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a
great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into
my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark
disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide
from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move
across the grass
But my quick eyes will
see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however
silently,
But my hushed voice will
answer Thee.
I know the path that
tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of
every day;
God, I can push the grass
apart
And lay my finger on Thy
heart!
The world stands out on
either side
No wider than the heart
is wide;
Above the world is
stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul
is high.
The heart can push the
sea and land
Farther away on either
hand;
The soul can split the
sky in two,
And let the face of God
shine through.
But East and West will
pinch the heart
That can not keep them
pushed apart;
And he whose soul is
flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by
and by.
