Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Second April
    Second April
    Second April
    Ebook94 pages39 minutes

    Second April

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    Author

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters, and was encouraged by her mother to develop her talents for music and poetry. Her long poem "Renascence" won critical attention in an anthology contest in 1912 and secured for her a patron who enabled her to go to Vassar College. After graduating in 1917 she lived in Greenwich Village in New York for a few years, acting, writing satirical pieces for journals (usually under a pseudonym), and continuing to work at her poetry. She traveled in Europe throughout 1921-22 as a "foreign correspondent" for Vanity Fair. Her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) gained her a reputation for hedonistic wit and cynicism, but her other collections (including the earlier Renascence and Other Poems [1917]) are without exception more seriously passionate or reflective. In 1923 she married Eugene Boissevain and -- after further travel -- embarked on a series of reading tours which helped to consolidate her nationwide renown. From 1925 onwards she lived at Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, New York, where her husband protected her from all responsibilities except her creative work. Often involved in feminist or political causes (including the Sacco-Vanzetti case of 1927), she turned to writing anti-fascist propaganda poetry in 1940 and further damaged a reputation already in decline. In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor. She died in 1950.

    Read more from Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Related to Second April

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      A type of hickory, it grows by water.So are we fools to drive to the riverthe day after our most savage stormshave finally stopped to seea tree we’ve never seen before?To hike in cold mud through a leafless forest,to behold clearings now clutteredby

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Mournful Spring

      Mar 1, 2022

      in memory of Adam Zagajewski So many friends have you seen pass,maestro of the poetic eulogy. Now it’s my turn. Can you hear me?We don’t know. Why didn’t we spend more time together,talk more, call each other? I thought you’d live to be old,very ol

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      I have an endless appetite for starfruit,for biting my teeth into the universe and spitting outthe space junk, for licking the rings of my favorite planetsand never slicing my tongue. There’s a story I shareabout my birth where angels circle my dead

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How Instagram Saved Poetry

      Oct 15, 2018

      How Instagram Saved Poetry
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Be Bold

      Jun 12, 2019

      Be Bold
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Mar 15, 2022

      a ghost is hangingfrom the doorpostof our past— can you see it?it has wounds—it’s bleedingyears from its mouth [.] when we left ourhouses that aprilit was for history’s pleasure— twice the war wasin far-flung townsthen it grew a light foot and veered

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Casey Gerald

      Dec 14, 2018

      There’s a line in my book that reads, “I have been so many things along my curious journey: a poor boy, a nigger, a Yale man, a Harvard man, a faggot, a Christian, a crack baby (alleged), the Spawn of Satan, the Second Coming, Casey.” My reading tend

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      The afterlife is an infinity of custom shelving, where everything you have ever loved has a perfect place, including things that don’t fit on shelves, like the weeping willow from your parents’ backyard, or an old boyfriend, exactly as he was in your

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lording

      Jun 14, 2022

      It’s 4:38 P.M., eight minutes after I usually go home, but now I’m rooting around under my chair cushion, double-checking my shirt pocket, hunting for an unmarked baggie of white bars, which I shouldn’t have left in my office, which I shouldn’t have

      17 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems by Jennifer Barber

      Jun 8, 2021

      At first puzzlement, then joy. My baby in the making—surely my last—would, like a ferry heading for a wharf,know what to do along the way. The multiplying cells, the chemistryof contentment spreading through my blood: I was as ready for her birthas I

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bhanu Kapil

      Mar 15, 2019

      Everything is red. The trees look like they’re bending over. The lorry is approaching the village. Nurpur. Don’t tell anyone it was Nurpur. Just say it was any old village. A motorbike was coming from the opposite direction. The driver of the motorbi

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      TEN POEMS Translations of Rafael Alberti

      May 1, 2024

      Throughout the centuries,through the nothingness of the world,I, without sleep, search for you. Behind me, imperceptible,without touching my shoulders,my dead angel keeps watch. Where is Paradise,Shadow, you who have been there?I ask silently. Cities

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tessa Castro

      May 3, 2023

      IN COMPETITION No 292 you were invited to write a poem called The Walk. How good and numerous were your entries. Congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary going to Anthony Young. I'

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Rise Above

      Nov 1, 2023

      Rise Above
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Shout Out

      Nov 7, 2020

      Shout Out
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Mar 2, 2020

      Some people jump, some people dive,Others inch by inch arrive And give themselves up to the chill,Piecemeal, with a grudging will: First toes, then ankles tempt the cold,And backs of knees, that, tender, fold, Then thighs that start to pimple, blo

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2017

      Sep 11, 2017

      Isn’t that one of the purest goals of poetry—to justify our breaths? To recognize that we matter? The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tessa Castro

      Mar 9, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 277 you were invited to write a poem called Morning Sounds. The entries were vivid: half domestic, half outdoor. Tim Lloyd observed that ‘A bin lorry approaching in reverse/Sounds like an asthmatic seal.’ Liz Piper remembered, durin

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Home

      Feb 25, 2019

      I once lived in a yellow little house. Each morning, birds convened and sang at my bedroom window. The gate was indigo and inside the garden all kinds of flowers rose to kiss the sunny walls. The yellow nest was filled with cherished books, colourful

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mountain Time

      Jan 1, 2021

      In the air you don’t know who you are or where My own self feels it is in wind being born These are currents a man made one eighth of smokeless fire fears but chooses A path south from Anchorage to a Mountain House Ungovern the northern land to pass

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2019

      before I was one I heard every soundas a sound that had never been heard,before I was one I saw every lightas a light separate from dark, colorhidden in a place I had not been.Before I was one I used feet to wakenin water, to pedal through air,hands

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Until The Sea Closed Over Us And The Light Was Gone

      Jul 1, 2020

      —Dante, Canto XXVI But if the truth is dreamed of toward the morning—El Paso Although it was really last summer’s song,all this summer Despacito played on as slower then I turned myself to gazeupon Juarez. The summer everything hurts my eyes, a dozen

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Call Of The Wild

      Nov 30, 2020

      The Call Of The Wild
      2 min read

    Reviews for Second April

    4/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The poem "Travel" reminded me of Freya Stark in it's restlessness and sense of adventure. To look at train tracks and wonder where they end up. To watch a plane make its way across the sky, the contrails fading bit by bit, and guess its final destination. Who hasn't done that?
    • 5/5
      Lyric poetry at its best. The second April after her affair. The sonnet sequence that establishes her firmly as a master of that form.

    Book preview

    Second April - Edna St. Vincent Millay

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second April, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: Second April

    Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Release Date: August 13, 2008 [EBook #1247]

    Last Updated: February 6, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND APRIL ***

    Produced by Judy Boss, and David Widger

    SECOND APRIL

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    TO

    MY BELOVED FRIEND

    CAROLINE B. DOW

    CONTENTS

    SECOND APRIL

    SPRING

    CITY TREES

    THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG

    JOURNEY

    EEL-GRASS

    ELEGY BEFORE DEATH

    THE BEAN-STALK

    WEEDS

    PASSER MORTUUS EST

    PASTORAL

    ASSAULT

    TRAVEL

    LOW-TIDE

    SONG OF A SECOND APRIL

    ROSEMARY

    THE POET AND HIS BOOK

    ALMS

    INLAND

    TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG

    WRAITH

    EBB

    ELAINE

    BURIAL

    MARIPOSA

    THE LITTLE HILL

    DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON

    LAMENT

    EXILED

    THE DEATH OF AUTUMN

    ODE TO SILENCE

    EPITAPH

    PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE

    CHORUS

    ELEGY

    DIRGE

    SONNETS

    WILD SWANS

    SECOND APRIL

    SPRING

         To what purpose, April, do you return again?

         Beauty is not enough.

         You can no longer quiet me with the redness

         Of little leaves opening stickily.

         I know what I know.

         The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

         The spikes of the crocus.

         The smell of the earth is good.

         It is apparent that there is no death.

         But what does that signify?

         Not only under ground are the brains of men

         Eaten by maggots,

         Life in itself

         Is nothing,

         An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

         It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

         April

         Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

    CITY TREES

         The trees along this city street,

           Save for the traffic and the trains,

         Would make a sound as thin and sweet

           As trees in country lanes.

         And people standing in their shade

           Out of a shower, undoubtedly

         Would hear such music as is made

           Upon a country tree.

         Oh, little leaves that are so dumb

           Against the shrieking city air,

         I watch you when the wind has come,—

           I know what sound is there.

    THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG

         God had called us, and we came;

           Our loved Earth to ashes left;

         Heaven was a neighbor's house,

           Open to us, bereft.

         Gay the lights of Heaven showed,

           And 'twas God who walked ahead;

         Yet I wept along the road,

           Wanting my own house instead.

         Wept unseen, unheeded cried,

           "All you things my eyes have kissed,

         Fare you well!  We meet no more,

           Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

         Weary wings that rise and fall

           All day long above the fire!"—

         Red with heat was every wall,

           Rough with heat was every wire—

         "Fare you well, you little winds

           That the flying embers chase!

         Fare you well, you shuddering day,

           With your hands before your face!

         And, ah, blackened by strange blight,

           Or to a false sun unfurled,

         Now forevermore goodbye,

           All the gardens in the world!

         On the windless hills of Heaven,

           That I have no wish to see,

         White, eternal lilies stand,

           By a lake of ebony.

         But the Earth forevermore

           Is a place where nothing grows,—

         Dawn will come, and no bud break;

           Evening, and no blossom close.

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1