Edna St. Vincent Millay
Reading edition
GOD’S WORLD
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all
But never knew I this.
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
226
ASHES OF LIFE
Love has gone and left me, and the days are all alike.
Eat I must, and sleep I will—and would that night were here!
But ah, to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again, with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me, and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through—
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.
THE SHROUD
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine, O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other.
(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.
I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)
227Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine, O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other.