Early Poems

Description

Millay’s first three books of lyrics and sonnets are collected here: Renascence, Second April, and A Few Figs from Thistles. With a balanced and appreciative introduction and useful annotations, this volume presents some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s best work in which she weaves intellect, emotion, and irony.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. 

Early PoemsAcknowledgments
Introduction by Holly Peppe
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text
Renascence and Other Poems
Renascence
Interim
The Suicide
God’s World
Afternoon on a Hill
Sorrow
Tavern
Ashes of Life
The Little Ghost
Kin to Sorrow
Three Songs of Shattering
The Shroud
The Dream
Indifference
Witch-Wife
Blight
When the Year Grows Old
Thou are not lovelier than lilacs, – no
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring
Not in this chamber only at my birth
If I should learn, in some quite casual way
Bluebeard

A Few Figs from Thistles
First Fig
Second Fig
Recuerdo
Thursday
To the Not Impossible Him
Macdougal Street
The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge
She Is Overheard Singing
The Prisoner
The Unexplorer
Grown-up
The Penitent
Daphne
Portrait by a Neighbour
Midnight Oil
The Merry Maid
To Kathleen
To S. M.
The Philosopher
I do but ask that you be always fair
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts
I think I should have loved you presently
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow
I shall forget you presently, my dear

Second April
Spring
City Trees
The Blue-Flag in the Bog
Journey
Eel-Grass
Elegy Before Death
The Bean-Stalk
Weeds
Passer Mortuus Est
Pastoral
Assault
Travel
Low-Tide
Song of a Second April
Rosemary
The Poet and His Book
Alms
Inland
To a Poet that Died Young
Wraith
Ebb
Elaine
Burial
Mariposa
The Little Hill
Doubt No More That Oberon
Lament
Exiled
The Death of Autumn
Ode to Silence
Memorial to D. C.
Wild Swans
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend
Into the golden vessel of great song
Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
Only until this cigarette is ended
Once more into my arid days like dew
No rose that in a garden ever grew
When I too long have looked upon your face
And you as well must die, beloved dust
Let you not say of me when I am old
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Cherish you then the hope I shall forget

Explanatory Notes
Index of Titles and First Lines

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, and grew up in the seaside town of Camden. She published her first poems as a teenager and, at twenty, her long poem “Renascence” appeared in the anthology The Lyric Year. At Vassar, she developed her talents and reputation as a dramatist and actor. After graduating in 1917, Millay moved to Greenwich Village in New York City where she gave poetry readings and became known for her freedom of thought and feminist views. Her poetry was published in several magazines, including Vanity Fair, Poetry, and Forum. Her first book, Renascence and Other Poems (1917), was followed in 1920 by A Few Figs from Thistles (an expanded edition appeared in 1922) and in 1921 by Second April.

In 1923, upon her return from two years of writing and traveling in Europe, Millay received the second annual Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and published a new collection, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems. Millay published five more collections of poetry: The Buck in the Snow (1928), Fatal Interview (1931), Wine from These Grapes (1934), Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939), Make Bright the Arrows (1940); a prose collection under her pen name, Nancy Boyd, titled Distressing Dialogues (1924; its foreword carried Millay’s byline); a translation, with George Dillon, of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil (1936); the verse dramas Conversation at Midnight (1937) and The Murder of Lidice (1942); and several plays. Her final book was the posthumously published Mine the Harvest (1954), edited by her younger sister Norma. Edna St. Vincent Millay died in 1950.

Holly Peppe, who holds a master of arts in teaching from Brown University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire, is a former professor and director of the English department at the American College of Rome and a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar. Dr. Peppe—whose doctoral dissertation focuses on Millay’s critical reception and sonnet sequences, and who often lectures on Millay—has served as president of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society since 1987. The Society is responsible for the preservation of Steepletop, the poet’s home (designated a National Public Landmark) in Austerlitz, New York, and the placement of the poet’s archives and family papers. Dr. Peppe is also involved with the Millay Colony for the Arts, an artists’ retreat at Steepletop founded in 1973 by Norma Millay. Dr. Peppe’s own poetry, translations, articles, and essays have appeared in numerous books and periodicals. She lives in New York City.

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