WWBP: Edna St Vincent Millay

I've never properly gushed about her, so I think I'm just doing this one as a collection of works from my favourite semi-obscure poet.

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. 

Second Fig:

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Childhood is the Kingdom where No One Dies:

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
—mothers and fathers don't die.

And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you'd stop tapping on the window with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake
them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.

The Prisoner:

ALL right,
Go ahead!
What's in a name?
I guess I'll be locked into
As much as I'm locked out of!

I Will Put Chaos into 14 Lines

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon — his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.

I might have to do one for Chuck Bukowski some day. Convince Aragon to do one on Robert Frost so I don't have to.

Shoutouts to; Ferret, Cavemonkynick, Horizon, DJthomp, Ariamaki, Hoopy McGee, Serifina, Monarch Dodora, Darkszero, Sarge1995 and whoever I missed.

Comments

[horizon]

It would be so cool to see that last one reformatted as typographical art into the shape of Discord.

Also, a shout-out to Afternoon On A Hill.

[MrNumbers]

4680240

Still got Administrative Angel open in the tab next to this; I haven't read it yet, but it hasn't been for lack of intent.

I'll throw in another of my favourites, Asylum then, as penance;

Once from a big, big building,
When I was small, small,
The queer folk in the windows
Would smile at me and call.

And in the hard wee gardens
Such pleasant men would hoe:
"Sir, may we touch the little girl's hair!"—
It was so red, you know.

They cut me coloured asters
With shears so sharp and neat,
They brought me grapes and plums and pears
And pretty cakes to eat.

And out of all the windows,
No matter where we went,
The merriest eyes would follow me
And make me compliment.

There were a thousand windows,
All latticed up and down.
And up to all the windows,
When we went back to town,

The queer folk put their faces,
As gentle as could be;
"Come again, little girl!" they called, and I
Called back, "You come see me!"

[TheJediMasterEd]

"Recuerdo" is exactly what it is like to be young and poor and very grand, and I'm glad I was able to live that way while I could.

[Shannon Vanshoon]

What, no mention of 'Conscientious Objector'? Tsk. Always did really like that one myself.

Also, Kahlil Gibran. That is all. ^_^

[ForSpite]

Hah, I recognize pieces of almost all these, even though I don't recognize the poet's name. Admittedly, I'm terrible with names.

Seems to be a poet to look up.

[Aragon]

I'd go and say that Robert Frost is a lil' less... I don't know, easy to remember? I like him because most of his poems are, for lack of a good word, catchy. I do seem to like Edna St. Vincent Millay better (hadn't read anything by her before I met ya), because to be honest, I read Robert Frost when I'm bored, not when I wanna read trascendent shit a la Childhood is the Kingdom where No One Dies.

I mean, don't get me wrong, dude's great and Road Not Taken and Fire and Ice are super cool, but he does shit like writing about a vaudeville gag on gardening hoes.