Three Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Daphne

Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.

Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.

Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;—to heel, Apollo!
:::

Make bright the arrows

Make bright the arrows
Gather the shields:
Conquest narrows
The peaceful fields.

Stock well the quiver
With arrows bright:
The bowman feared
Need never fight.

Make bright the arrows,
O peaceful and wise!
Gather the shields
Against surprise.

.::

Inert Perfection

"Inert Perfection, let me chip your shell.
You cannot break it through with that soft beak.
What if you broke it never, and it befell
You should not issue thence, should never speak?"

Perfection in the egg, a fluid thing,
Grows solid in due course, and there exists;
Knowing no urge to struggle forth and sing;
Complete, though shell-bound. But the mind insists

It shall be hatched ... to this ulterior end:
That it be bound by Function, that it be
Less than Perfection, having to expend
Some force on a nostalgia to be free.

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Photo © Deutscher Kunstverlag