| Title | : | Second April |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1419146459 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781419146459 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 56 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1921 |
Second April Reviews
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Millay's third collection, published just a year after her
A Few Figs from Thistles: Poems and Sonnets and just as beautiful in the music of her rhythm and rhymes. She again also composes in an impressive range of poetic forms, from elegies to sonnets. Thematically though it's quite different, this time filled with lament for the dead, love disappointments, unfulfilled dreams.
The collection title is deceptive if one expects that it celebrates the rebirth and new life heralded by spring, it's anything but... It is dedicated to her friend from college who died young in the flu pandemic and there is a poignant section MEMORIAL TO D. C. [VASSAR COLLEGE, 1918] with an homage in 6 poetic forms traditionally honoring the dead (elegy, epitaph, dirge ...). There are also echoes of remembrances of many fallen lives in World War I as when the leading poem SPRING, takes a dark turn:Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing, ...
from THE POET AND HIS BOOK:Stranger, pause and look;
from TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG:
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters, finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!Many a bard 's untimely death
Lends unto his verses breath ;
Here 's a song was never sung :
Growing old is dying young.
TRAVELThe railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going. -
Wild Swans
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!
Group IX/SUW, No. 1. The Swan, No.1, by Hilma af Klint. -
Second April is a volume of beautiful melancholy. Millay uses a number of poetic forms to set the vibrant world of beauty against the reality of death and loss. In the first line of her first poem, Spring, she challenges the very idea of life renewal -
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
And closes the poem with -
It is not enough that, yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
In Passer Mortuus Est she extends her theme of death to a relationship that has failed -
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Now that love is perished?
And in The Death of Autumn Millay finally renounces the season of renewal altogether, praising the stark beauty of death -
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and
crushes
My heart. I know that beauty must ail and
die,
And will be born again, - but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn! - What is the Spring
to me? -
Favourites:
— Spring
— The Blue-Flag in the Bog
— Elegy Before Death
— Passer Mortuus Est
— Low-Tide
— The Poet and His Book
— Alms
— Wraith
— Burial
— Mariposa
— Doubt No More Than That Oberon
— The Death of Autumn
— Ode to Silence
— Prayer to Persephone
— Sonnets III, VI, VIII, IX, X -
This has some real gems. I love returning to this collection occasionally, like checking in with an old friend.
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Travel
THE railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going. -
I first came to know Edna Saint Vincent Millay studying American social history, as the quintessential bohemian, a precursor and them participant in the Jazz Age of the 20s. Next I came to love her poetry, and the realities she embraces. I think Edna Saint Vincent Millay is one of the underrated American poets. She captures wild realities and modern sensibilities in traditional forms. Good stuff really.
from "Elegy Before Death"
Oh, there will pass with your great passing
Little of beauty not your own,-
Only the light from common water,
Only the grace from simple stone!
Good stuff. I'm a fan. You should join me. -
This is a collection of some very disturbing and depressing poems which almost seem like a cry for help in certain parts. The only redeeming part of this book, though still depressing, was the poem about a book begging to be picked up and read and not forgotten.
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Loved reading, very accessible.
Nice grouping of early work by this poet. Inconsistent impact, worth comparing to more mature, later poems. Loved when she found her own voice and it came through in a few pieces in this volume. -
I liked some of her poetry but it wasn't the best ever. Really liked her sonnets. But this book meant a lot to my mom so I gave it a read. Glad I did.
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“Death devours all lovely things:
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness - presently
Every bed is narrow.
Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation;
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?”
-from Passer Mortuus Est“Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea”
-from Exiled
Title: Second April
Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay
Year 1921
Genre: Poetry
Page count: 112 pages
Date(s) read: 1/17/23 - 1/19/23
Reading journal entry #24 in 2023
The text:
https://digital.library.upenn.edu/wom... -
Para mí no hay poesía más bonita que la de Edna St. Vincent Millay.
En solo 40 páginas (aproximadamente) logro convertirse en mi poeta favorita.
Sus poemas hacen crecer un poquito el corazón. Estoy convencida de que todo el mundo debería de leer a Millay al menos una vez en la vida; definitivamente cambió la mía de la forma más bella posible. -
3.5/5 stars
Pretty solid poetry collection, particularly the poems "April" and "The Poet and His Book."
Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters, finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I! -
“Oh, there will pass with your great passing
Little of beauty not your own,—
Only the light from common water,
Only the grace from simple stone!”
I don’t love every poem in this set, but the highs are so high that it’s a must-read. -
"The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?" i know it's july but this rocked my world -
~~~
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Beautiful.
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i love her
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Very nice way to relax at the end of the day. It was neat to read a vintage copy!
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3.75 stars
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She sure does love the sea!
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Much more sombre than the other works of Millay's I've read. The poems are about death and the end of love, with many descriptions of the sea, and of nature, and classical references. A set of five poems near the end is titled Memorial to D.C. [Vassar 1918]; D.C. was Dorothy Coleman, a close friend and possibly a lover of Millay's who died in the flu epidemic that year, prompting Millay to write at least some of these poems. Her publisher asked her to remove the five poems about D.C., but she refused. From the collection:
Lament
Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why. -
With a title like this, you won't be surprised to learn that this book contains my second-favorite poem about April:
"SPRING
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
"
I think it is those sticky little leaves that stretch across the ~100 years since this poem was published (1921) and snag me.
This book is available as an eBook in the public domain thanks to the volunteers at Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1247 -
From the middle period of Millay's life. I loved it, but then again I always do with her. I have a marked preference for her sonnets -- the longer
poems are equally beautiful in diction and image, but the repetitive, sing-songy pattern which made Millay famous and which I like very much is something
of a detriment over a hundred lines, pushing the poem down into consciousness so all you actively perceive is the rhythm. But yes, I love the sonnets and
Millay herself, her bravado, her cunning, her brazen sexuality, her wistful view of the human condition. -
I'm never exactly sure how to rate a book of poetry. Obviously not all of these poems are equal, and some are even mundane, but surely any book that includes "Elegy Before Death" and "And you as well must die, beloved dust" (two of my favorite poems of grief ever) must merit five stars purely on those two poems alone.
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I love her humor
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Some of these I loved, and some I didn't. Towards the beginning I expected to like this more, but it is in the middle for me.
