Sunday, July 5, 2015

Sunday Poetry - Edna St Vincent Millay


I've finished reading Edna St Vincent Millay's third book of poetry, Second April, so this will be the last of her poems in Sunday Poetry for a while. I've enjoyed discovering her work & will definitely look out for more of her poetry. I loved the poems in Second April especially, & this one, called Alms is melancholy & resigned. I love to read wintry books & poetry at this time of year.

My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane..

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight:
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, —and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

4 comments:

  1. It's hard to think of 'come and go' without thinking of Eliot's line in Prufrock. She is a wonderfully melancholy writer - I have enjoyed reading your choices.

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    1. Yes, the melancholy is why I enjoy reading her, I think. Although maybe I've just chosen the melancholy poems! I thought of Prufrock too, when I read it.

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  2. Even though it is sad, I love the wintry atmosphere of the poem. I've never read this poem before. Thanks for featuring it today!

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    1. It's very wintry here at the moment so it's appropriate! I'm glad you liked it.

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