The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Renascence and Other PoemsRenascenceAll I could see from where I stoodWas 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 lineOf the horizon, thin and fine,Straight around till I was comeBack to where I’d started from;And all I saw from where I stoodWas 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 smallMy 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 lieAnd 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!—InfinityCame down and settled over me;Forced back my scream into my chest,Bent back my arm upon my breast,And, pressing of the UndefinedThe definition on my mind,Held up before my eyes a glassThrough which my shrinking sight did passUntil it seemed I must beholdImmensity made manifold;Whispered to me a word whose soundDeafened the air for worlds around,And brought unmuffled to my earsThe gossiping of friendly spheres,The creaking of the tented sky,The ticking of Eternity.I saw and heard, and knew at lastThe How and Why of all things, past,And present, and forevermore.The Universe, cleft to the core,Lay open to my probing senseThat, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thenceBut could not,—nay! But needs must suckAt the great wound, and could not pluckMy lips away till I had drawnAll venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!For my omniscience paid I tollIn infinite remorse of soul.All sin was of my sinning, allAtoning mine, and mine the gallOf all regret. Mine was the weightOf every brooded wrong, the hateThat stood behind each envious thrust,Mine every greed, mine every lust.And all the while for every grief,Each suffering, I craved reliefWith individual desire,—Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fireAbout 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 bankBetween 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 deathThat was not mine; mine each last breathThat, crying, met an answering cryFrom the compassion that was I.All suffering mine, and mine its rod;Mine, pity like the pity of God.Ah, awful weight! InfinityPressed down upon the finite Me!My anguished spirit, like a bird,Beating against my lips I heard;Yet lay the weight so close aboutThere was no room for it without.And so beneath the weight lay IAnd suffered death, but could not die.Long had I lain thus, craving death,When quietly the earth beneathGave way, and inch by inch, so greatAt last had grown the crushing weight,Into the earth I sank till IFull six feet under ground did lie,And sank no more,—there is no weightCan follow here, however great.From off my breast I felt it roll,And as it went my tortured soulBurst forth and fled in such a gustThat all about me swirled the dust.Deep in the earth I rested now,Cool is its hand upon the browAnd soft its breast beneath the headOf one who is so gladly dead.And all at once, and over allThe pitying rain began to fall;I lay and heard each pattering hoofUpon my lowly, thatchèd roof,And seemed to love the sound far moreThan ever I had done before.For rain it hath a friendly soundTo one who’s six feet underground;And scarce the friendly voice or face:A grave is such a quiet place.The rain, I said, is kind to comeAnd speak to me in my new home.I would I were alive againTo kiss the fingers of the rain,To drink into my eyes the shineOf every slanting silver line,To catch the freshened, fragrant breezeFrom drenched and dripping apple-trees.For soon the shower will be done,And then the broad face of the sunWill laugh above the rain-soaked earthUntil the world with answering mirthShakes joyously, and each round dropRolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.How can I bear it; buried here,While overhead the sky grows clearAnd blue again after the storm?O, multi-colored, multi-form,Beloved beauty over me,That I shall never, never seeAgain! 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 gourdAnd let the heavy rain, down-pouredIn one big torrent, set me free,Washing my grave away from me!I ceased; and through the breathless hushThat answered me, the far-off rushOf herald wings came whisperingLike music down the vibrant stringOf my ascending prayer, and—crash!Before the wild wind’s whistling lashThe startled storm-clouds reared on highAnd plunged in terror down the sky,And the big rain in one black waveFell from the sky and struck my grave.I know not how such things can be;I only know there came to meA fragrance such as never clingsTo aught save happy living things;A sound as of some joyous elfSinging 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-tipsBrushed tenderly across my lips,Laid gently on my sealèd sight,And all at once the heavy nightFell 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 gustOf wind blew up to me and thrustInto my face a miracleOf 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 IAnd hailed the earth with such a cryAs is not heard save from a manWho 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 sobCaught fiercely, and a great heart-throbSent instant tears into my eyes;O God, I cried, no dark disguiseCan e’er hereafter hide from meThy radiant identity!Thou canst not move across the grassBut 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 wayThrough the cool eve of every day;God, I can push the grass apartAnd lay my finger on Thy heart!The world stands out on either sideNo 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 landFarther 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 heartThat can not keep them pushed apart;And he whose soul is flat—the skyWill cave in on him by and by.