PoeForward.com

POETRY: Ancient Classical Modern Contemporary

MODERN: Aleister Crowley Edna St. Vincent Millay Charles Baudelaire

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Millay Poems

HOME

POE

EVENTS

POETRY

GALLERIES

DEAD GIRLS

LIBRARY

ABOUT US

BLIGHT

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Hard seeds of hate I planted
  That should by now be grown, --
Rough stalks, and from thick stamens
  A poisonous pollen blown,
And odors rank, unbreathable,
  From dark corollas thrown!
At dawn from my damp garden
  I shook the chilly dew;
The thin boughs locked behind me
  That sprang to let me through;
The blossoms slept, -- I sought a place
  Where nothing lovely grew.
And there, when day was breaking,
  I knelt and looked around:
The light was near, the silence
  Was palpitant with sound;
I drew my hate from out my breast
  And thrust it in the ground.
Oh, ye so fiercely tended,
  Ye little seeds of hate!
I bent above your growing
  Early and noon and late,
Yet are ye drooped and pitiful, --
  I cannot rear ye straight!

The sun seeks out my garden,
  No nook is left in shade,
No mist nor mold nor mildew
  Endures on any blade,
Sweet rain slants under every bough:
  Ye falter, and ye fade.