RPO -- Edna St. Vincent Millay : Spring

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Spring

1To what purpose, April, do you return again?

2Beauty is not enough.

3You can no longer quiet me with the redness

4Of little leaves opening stickily.

5I know what I know.

6The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

7The spikes of the crocus.

8The smell of the earth is good.

9It is apparent that there is no death.

10But what does that signify?

11Not only under ground are the brains of men

12Eaten by maggots.

13Life in itself

14Is nothing,

15An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

16It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

17April

18Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Notes

1] This poem introduces the subject of the entire collection and is accordingly italicized in the original.
Cf. the opening of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, "April is the cruelest month".

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second April (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921): 1. B-11 3143 Fisher Rare Book Library.
First publication date: July 1920
Publication date note: Published in The Chapbook
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/3/6

Form: Free Verse

Other poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay