This poem has often been used as a toast, so it seems appropriate to christen the topic: First Fig My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-- It gives a lovely night. --Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

And of course, count on me to screw it up. I took it from a website that got the last line wrong. Take two! First Fig 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.

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood I turned and looked another way and saw three islands in a bay. These lines always pop into my head whenever anyone mentions Edna St. Vincent MIllay. They are the opening lines to her "Renaissance", which I had to memorize and recite for high school English class. I was never very impressed with the poem itself, only with the fact that I managed to memorize all 200+ lines of the dang thing. As poetry goes, I still am not too impressed with it. I do, however, very much like the candle poem.

A small correction--Millay's poem is not "Renaissance" but "Renascence." Wolf--thanks for creating this topic! *hugs*

why, you're quite welcome! *smile*

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set a fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.

Amy, as lovely as that poem is, methinks you need to read some cheerier stuff.

Oh, dear me! I guess I should be reading something other than ESVM then, since most of her poetry isn't very cheery! (I hate cheery poetry, in all honesty.)

Then you'd hate both Ogden Nash and John Burnett (like I should mention my name in the same sentence with his).

This may be a bit less than cheery, but it is certainly more optimistic then ESVM or DP

Oops...here it is. Sorry it's another (dead) poet, but I hope Millay doesn't mind. Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens - 1915 1 Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passion of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. 2 Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in the comforts of sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. 3 Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. 4 She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote as heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her rememberance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings. 5 She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. 6 Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receeding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. 7 Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. 8 She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsered, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Abiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

John - I put a special poem on Favorite Poets last night for you and either you read it and did not comment, or you have not yet gotten there. Do check!

The True Encounter - ESVM "Wolf!" cried my cunning heart At every sheep it spied, And roused the countryside. "Wolf! Wolf!" - and up would start Good neighbors, bringing spade And pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was known: Therein lay my release. I met the wolf alone And was devoured in peace.

Aww, Wolf, have you been devouring sheep again? *giggle*

Hello Rlys/Robin, took you a while to get from Screwed to other places... So, besides thrillers you're into poetry?

Busy with other things....Edna St.Vincent Millay is a favorite. One of my favorite gifts from my husband is a book of her poetry.

Here lies, and none to mourn him but the sea, That falls incessant on the empty shore, Most various Man, cut down to spring no more; Before his prime, even in his infancy Cut down, and all the clamour that was he, Silenced; and all the riveted pride he wore, A rusted iron column whose tall core The rains have tunnelled like an aspen tree. Man, doughty Man, what power has brought you low, That heaven itself in arms could not persuade To lay aside the lever and the spade And be as dust among the dusts that blow? Whence, whence the broadside? whose heavy blade?... Strive not to speak, poor scattered mouth; I know. (Boy, she could write some beautiful sonnets, couldn't she?)

I guess so.

Was Millay always going on about death? That is one unusual poem of hers Robin posted - or am I not "up" on my Millay (what else is new?!)...guess I'll have to seek her out and see for myself. Most peculiar. Ame, thanks for your sad poem...!

Of course, Amy was the poster child for that past piece...!

Marcia - the book is Collected Poems, poem found on page 354. Millay's poetry is pretty dark a lot of the time & she did dwell on death......I took a wonderful college course where she was required reading. This is a pretty short poem, I like it because it reminds me of the story of the boy who cried wolf too often...has nothing to do with conf. adm. name....

So, our Wolf is off the hook! Phew, [wiping brows] thawas close! Wolfsie, where are ya?

Amy, the sonnet you posted is incredible. Actually, it has to be influenced by the Romantics. Looks and sounds much like W.W. I just love iambic pentameter, whether rhymed or blank verse.

Robin - that was my reaction to the poem - immediately! How interesting. If she had such dark thoughts frequently, I'm going to have to check on her life, as well as her poetry. This appears to be a "black hole" in my literary life. Thanks for making me aware of it! Alexander, our Wolfie is busy for a while but will post when and if she is able. She says Hi!

So do I!

Then I shall tell her *smile* You will brighten her day for certain!

Oh, if this is given to me, I then have not lived in vain! And when will she brighten mine again?

She posted a little in SpringArk a few days ago, and she will be in and out for another week or so, then she will be back to brighten us all on a regular basis. (You did not know you brighten my day any time you post?! 'Tis true!)

hi folks! yup, the wolf evokes a lot of thoughts in people. this one, however, did not eat sheep. thanks for venturing into poetry robin/rizzer!

DIRGE WITHOUT MUSIC I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,-- They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Thanks, Amy - EStVM was a very dark and moody lady, Indeed. Robin, might you post more from that lovely book your throughtful husband gave you? I, for one, would appreciate it.