Renascence and Other Poems Quotes

“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.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay , Renascence and Other Poems

“SHE is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ’tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“Strange how few,
After all’s said and done, the things that are
Of moment.
Few indeed! When I can make
Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
“I had you and I have you now no more.”
There, there it dangles,—where’s the little truth
That can for long keep footing under that
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?
Here, let me write it down! I wish to see
Just how a thing like that will look on paper!

“I had you and I have you now no more.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“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...”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“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.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair, - and the long year remembers you.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
and present, and forevermore.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“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!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“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.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one going mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“The breath of dying lilies haunted the twilight air.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,—
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,—and the long year remembers you.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“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.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems

“O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems