Edna St. Vincent Millay|Poetry
About Edna St. Vincent Millay
It was a poem written by Edna St. Vincent Millay that caused me to love poetry from a young girl. I was enamored with her and Lord Byron. I still am today. I write it constantly and only hope to meet a fraction of the mood brought forward by great poets.
The verse that sticks in my mind and forever haunts me is:
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.
Since I was little I worried and fretted a lot about death.. thus my interest in Lord Byron as well. He wrote a poem called "And Thou Art Dead" I memorized a lot of it when I lost a friend in high school.
Do try to take the time to read this entire poem.. it is a treasure and a window into the soul of Ms. Millay.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).
"Renascence" (1917)
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 underground 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, thatchd 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 seald 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.
~ Now aren't you glad you took time to read it?
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Born: 22-Feb-1892
Birthplace: Rockland, ME
Died: 19-Oct-1950
Location of death: Austerlitz, NY
Cause of death: Heart Failure
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Bisexual
Occupation: Poet
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Renascence
Father: Henry Tollman Millay (schoolteacher)
Mother: Cora Lounella Buzzelle (nurse)
Sister: Norma
Sister: Kathleen
Husband: Eugen Jan Boissevain (Dutch businessman, m. 1923, open marriage, d. 1949 lung cancer)
Slept with: George Dillon (poet)
Girlfriend: Wynne Matthison
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Turn on some music!
TURN ON SOME MUSIC
as you enjoy my lens.
The music of Melissa Etheridge and Joss Stone is posted below for sale as well.
I tried to think of who Edna St. Vincent Millay would like and chose Melissa Etheridge because of her strong determination to survive and Joss Stone because she is brilliant at expressing her own soul while singing a bit of Janice Joplin.
Quotes by Edna St. Vincent Millay and List of Selected Works
God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.
~~
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
~~
I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.
~~
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.
~~
Music my rampart, and my only one.
~~
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!
~~
Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive.
~~
Parrots, tortoises and redwoods live a longer life than men do; Men a longer life than dogs do; Dogs a longer life than love does.
~~
Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.
~~
Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.
~~
The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.
~~
The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.
~~
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.
~~
We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.
~~
What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.
~~
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
~~*~~
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
A Few Figs from Thistles (1920)
Collected Lyrics (1943)
Collected Poems (1949)
Collected Poems (1956)
Collected Sonnets (1941)
Conversations at Midnight (1937)
Distressing Dialogues (1924)
Fatal Interview (1931)
Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939)
Invocation of the Muses (1941)
Make Bright the Arrows (1940)
Mine the Harvest (1954)
Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army (1944)
Poems (1923)
Renascence and Other Poems (1917)
Second April (1921)
The Buck in the Snow (1928)
The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923)
There Are No Islands Any More (1940)
Wine from These Grapes (1934)
Drama
Aria da Capo (1921)
Distressing Dialogues (1924)
The King's Henchmanv (1927)
The Lamp and the Bell (1921)
The Murder of Lidice (1942)
The Princess Marries the Page (1932)
Three Plays (1926)
Two Slatterns and a King (1921)
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Great Edna St. Vincent Millay stuff from Amazon
Melissa Etheridge and Joss Stone
Is Joss Stone the New Janice Joplin?
Is Joss Stone the new Janice Joplin?
Quick, what do you think of Edna St. Vincent Millay?
There Are Millions Who Walk in Crowds - Unknown to Their Own Selves
In HONOR of Edna St Vincint Millay,by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
~~*~~
There are millions who walk in crowds
unknown
to their own selves.
Self inflicted wounds
broken slates that bore
some kind of promise
once.
Treasuring tunes of sainthood
someone they hoped to be
yet crucified
by stark colors
of their own vanity.
Signs on the wall
baskets of honor
windows
that are meant to stay closed
lest the truth fly in.
You saw their virtue all gone
at least that's what you said
one rainy afternoon.
But Lily
little fairy hope of mine
still sees them in white
well meaning
addicted to finding cures
and perhaps a few good deeds
or at lest that's what she told me.
There are charms we all enlist
to cover up inadequacies.
Glancing over bridges
we consider the advantages
but refuse to pass ore
thus leaving that one wilting flower
un-clipped.
And there we say
we are as compassionate
as the next.
Maybe that's irrelevant now.
Clinging to words
I refuse to ignore
I feel cold
I shiver
beneath these platitudes
statements of moral content
that used to be my solace.
Now they are passed over
for fear of being scrutinized
by well mannered
holy
crosses.
Souls who wander confused
me and maybe you
Lets be sure to mark the pathways
so we can find our way home.
With so many distractions
we may never know our own conscience
until it has been sold.
I see our unsaid confessions
ponder failures
as we all must
stinging now
those works that hosted a certain quality
of being dull
ordinary
trite
but none the less took on a critical eye
and rescued us all
if only
in name.
~~*~~
ABOUT Kathy Ostman-Magnusen: I am an artist, represented by Monkdogz Urban Art, New York. ORIGINAL ART may be purchased through Monkdogz: http://www.monkdogz.com/chelseagallery/artistart/M...
FREE ART GIFTS,suitable for children plus prints, giclees, cards, available on my website: http://www.kathysart.com
THE IMAGE is of my sculpture "Bleeding Wings 5"
~~*~~
"The Penitent" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (poetry reading)
"The Penitent" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,
"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
And I upon the floor will lie
And think how bad I've been!"
Alas for pious planning—
It mattered not a whit!
As far as gloom went in that room,
The lamp might have been lit!
My little Sorrow would not weep,
My little Sin would go to sleep—
To save my soul I could not keep
My graceless mind on it!
So I got up in anger,
And took a book I had,
And put a ribbon on my hair
To please a passing lad,
And, "One thing there's no getting by—
I've been a wicked girl," said I:
"But if I can't be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!"
Edna St Vincent Millay Link List and Me
- Edna St. Vincent Millay Society Home Page
The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society's mission is to protect and preserve the literary and artistic work, personal belongings, and real property of the American Poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. The Society's activities include the preservation of her ho - Edna St. Vincent Millay - Pipl Profile
Pipl profile of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Quick facts, related people, online personal profiles, publications, contact details and much more. - Kathy's Art • Fantasy Art Woman | Beautiful Women Goddess Art
Fantasy art of exotic women by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen. Beautiful women goddess art and fantasy art woman original paintings, giclees, posters and greeting cards. - StumbleUpon - The Art of Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
Website review of The Art of Kathy Ostman-Magnusen. Discovered in Arts. Related to arts.StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, ... - Kathy Ostman-Magnusen - Buzzle Author
ABOUT Kathy Ostman-Magnusen I am an artist, I paint and sculpt women primarily; in their daily lives; in lives they might be afraid of; and in lives they ... - Spirit Dance Photographic Print by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen at ...
Spirit Dance Photographic Print by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen - at AllPosters.com. Choose from over 300000 posters and prints. - Kathy Ostman-Magnusen - Chelsea Art Galleries
Details for artist Kathy Ostman-Magnusen by Chelsea Art Galleries. Gallery shows, art work, auction results, and more. - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Edna St. Vincent Millay
A resource from the Academy of American Poets with thousands of poems, essays, biographies, weekly features, and poems for love and every occasion. Edna St. Vincent Millay Poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on F - "The Victorian Series |www.kathysart.com
Kathy Ostman-Magnusen "The Victorian Series |www.kathysart.com"The Victorian" series of art work in butterfly garden was painted from a series of photos. We had a lovely tea party with cookies and chocolate. Butterflies were nearby checking in on whi
Art Fantasy Woman
"Art Fantasy Woman-Every Goddess in Woman-I Know a Tale"
Fantasy woman
every goddess in woman
I know a tale
I know an art fantasy woman.
There beneath the ferns
my Lily does prevail
a victim of her own
self induced
circumstances.
Such a garden she has known
such a flower
temptations met to know their invisible dance.
Late at night I heard her laughing
a chatter coming through my bedroom wall.
I heard dear Lily step into the forest
past my contentions
saying no
not without following a plan.
This world is actually quite small.
No rules can be broken
no path to discover
put your heart there on the mantle
and walk only
as you are told.
Lily dear Lily
fantasy art woman
how bold and free
how luxurious are your pleasures.
My fantasy art goddess
refused
moved forward
past my still wet map
and bleeding gothic fairies.
Blindly she reaches out on stormy nights
that has always been her weakness.
No measuring of consequences
No watching for the mounted posse
planning her demise.
Lily, fantasy woman
every goddess in woman
rests in our own wishful smiles.
Taking chances
dare I say she is my hero?
Despite my desperate objections?
Beautiful fantasy that is Lily.
Fantasy art woman
I cannot let you leave my grasp.
I had never known that flowers dance
never thought that far.
It was Lily slipping past the night
ready for any enemy refusing her entry
who told me it was true.
I am Lily
I am an art fantasy woman.
Let me be
every prayer
I press between worn pages.
Lord Byron
Edna St. Vincent Millay
let me rest my head in your passion
read every line
know my own
be Lily
a fantasy of art woman
when I need to take her home.
Taking chances
dare I say she is my hero?
07 June 2008
by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
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