April is National Poetry Month!
Apr. 9th, 2008 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeThis poem, along with the musical 1776, is one of the only things capable of making me a feel a genuine sense of patriotism and a wholly enthusiastic kinship with my country. (Which is, yes, hideously ironic. Shush.) This is late Millay, quite a departure from her earlier, more traditionally structured works. I love it hugely, and if more free-verse read as well as this does, I'd like it better.
You really, really have to read this aloud to begin to get how well it flows. It just opens the whole thing up.
BTW, if this exists in full-text anywhere else on the web, I can't find it, so unless you've read Millay in dead tree form, this is probably going to be new to you. I hope you all appreciate my aching wrists.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Not For a Nation."
Not for a nation:
Not for the dividing, the estranging, thing
For;
Nor, in a world so small, the insulation
Of dream from dream--where dreams are links in the chain
Of a common hope; that man may yet regain
His dignity on earth--where before all
Eyes: small eyes of elephant and shark; still
Eyes of lizard grey in the sub-tropic noon,
Blowing his throat out into a scarlet, edged with cream incredible balloon
Suddenly, and suddenly dancing, hoisting and lowering his body on his short legs on the hot stone window-sill;
And the eyes of the upturned, grooved and dusty, rounded, dull cut-worm
Staring upward at the spade,--
These, all these, and more, from the corner of the eye see man, infirm
Tottering like a tree about to fall,--
Who yet had such high dreams--who not for this was made (or so said he),--nor did design to die at all.
Not for a nation:
Not for the dividing, the estranging, thing
For;
Nor, in a world so small, the insulation
Of dream from dream,
In what might be today, had we been better welders, a new chain for pulling down old buildings, uprooting the wrong trees; these
Not for;
Not for my country right or wrong;
Not for the drum or the bugle; not for the song
Which pipes me away from my home against my will along with the other children
To where I would not go
And makes me say what I promised never to say, and do the thing I am through with--
Into the Piper's Hill;
Not for the flag
Of any land because myself was born there
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that man where man is free,
And that I will defend.
"To the end?" you ask, "To the end?"--Naturally, to the end.
What is it to the world, or to me
That I beneath an elm, not beneath a tamarisk-tree
First filled my lungs, and clenched my tiny hands already spurred and nailed
Against the world, and wailed
In anger and frustration that all my tricks had failed and I had been torn
Out of the cave where I was hiding, to suffer in the world as I have done and I still do--
Never again--oh no, no more on earth--ever again to find abiding-place.
Birth--awful birth...
Whatever the country, whatever the colour and race.
The colour and the traits of each,
The shaping of his speech,--
These can the elm, given a long time, alter; these
Too, the tamarisk.
But if he starve, but if he freeze--
Early, in his own tongue, he knows;
And though with arms or bows or a dipped thorn
Blown through a tube, he fights--the brisk
Rattle of shot he is not slow to tell
From the sound of ripe seed bursting from a poddy shell;
And he whom all his life, life has abused
Yet knows if he be justly or unjustly used.
I know these elms, this beautiful doorway: here
I am at home, if anywhere.
A natural fondness, an affection which need never be said,
Rises from the wooden sidewalks warm as the smell of new-baked bread
From a neighbor's kitchen. It is dusk. The sun goes down.
Sparsely strung along the street the thrifty lights appear.
It is pleasant. It is good.
I am very well-known here; here I am understood.
I can walk along the street, or turn into a path unlighted, without fear
Of poisonous snakes, or of any face in town.
Tall elms, my roots go down
As deep as yours into this soil, yes quite as deep.
And I here the rocking of my cradle. And I must not sleep.
Not for a nation; not for a little town,
Where, when the sun goes down, you may sit without fear
On the front porch, just out of reach of the arc-light, rocking,
With supper ready, wearing a pale new dress, and your baby near
In its crib, and your husband due to be home by the next trolley that you hear bumping into Elm Street--no:
But for a dream that was dreamt an elm-tree's life ago--
And longer, yes, much longer, and what I mean you know.
For the dream, for the plan, for the freedom of man as it was meant
To be;
Not for the structure set up so lustily, by rule of thumb
And over-night, bound to become
Loose, lop-sided, out of plumb,
But for the dream, for the plan, for the freedom of man as it was meant
To be
By men with more vision, more wisdom, more purpose, more brains
Than we,
(Possibly, possibly)
Men with more courage, men more unselfish, more intent
Than we, upon their dreams, upon their dream of Freedom,--Freedom not along
For oneself, but for all, wherever the word is known,
In whatever tongue, or the longing in whatever spirit--
Men with more honour. (That remains
To be seen! That we shall see!)
Possibly. Possibly.
And if still these truths be held to be
Self-evident.
You really, really have to read this aloud to begin to get how well it flows. It just opens the whole thing up.
BTW, if this exists in full-text anywhere else on the web, I can't find it, so unless you've read Millay in dead tree form, this is probably going to be new to you. I hope you all appreciate my aching wrists.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Not For a Nation."
Not for a nation:
Not for the dividing, the estranging, thing
For;
Nor, in a world so small, the insulation
Of dream from dream--where dreams are links in the chain
Of a common hope; that man may yet regain
His dignity on earth--where before all
Eyes: small eyes of elephant and shark; still
Eyes of lizard grey in the sub-tropic noon,
Blowing his throat out into a scarlet, edged with cream incredible balloon
Suddenly, and suddenly dancing, hoisting and lowering his body on his short legs on the hot stone window-sill;
And the eyes of the upturned, grooved and dusty, rounded, dull cut-worm
Staring upward at the spade,--
These, all these, and more, from the corner of the eye see man, infirm
Tottering like a tree about to fall,--
Who yet had such high dreams--who not for this was made (or so said he),--nor did design to die at all.
Not for a nation:
Not for the dividing, the estranging, thing
For;
Nor, in a world so small, the insulation
Of dream from dream,
In what might be today, had we been better welders, a new chain for pulling down old buildings, uprooting the wrong trees; these
Not for;
Not for my country right or wrong;
Not for the drum or the bugle; not for the song
Which pipes me away from my home against my will along with the other children
To where I would not go
And makes me say what I promised never to say, and do the thing I am through with--
Into the Piper's Hill;
Not for the flag
Of any land because myself was born there
Will I give up my life.
But I will love that man where man is free,
And that I will defend.
"To the end?" you ask, "To the end?"--Naturally, to the end.
What is it to the world, or to me
That I beneath an elm, not beneath a tamarisk-tree
First filled my lungs, and clenched my tiny hands already spurred and nailed
Against the world, and wailed
In anger and frustration that all my tricks had failed and I had been torn
Out of the cave where I was hiding, to suffer in the world as I have done and I still do--
Never again--oh no, no more on earth--ever again to find abiding-place.
Birth--awful birth...
Whatever the country, whatever the colour and race.
The colour and the traits of each,
The shaping of his speech,--
These can the elm, given a long time, alter; these
Too, the tamarisk.
But if he starve, but if he freeze--
Early, in his own tongue, he knows;
And though with arms or bows or a dipped thorn
Blown through a tube, he fights--the brisk
Rattle of shot he is not slow to tell
From the sound of ripe seed bursting from a poddy shell;
And he whom all his life, life has abused
Yet knows if he be justly or unjustly used.
I know these elms, this beautiful doorway: here
I am at home, if anywhere.
A natural fondness, an affection which need never be said,
Rises from the wooden sidewalks warm as the smell of new-baked bread
From a neighbor's kitchen. It is dusk. The sun goes down.
Sparsely strung along the street the thrifty lights appear.
It is pleasant. It is good.
I am very well-known here; here I am understood.
I can walk along the street, or turn into a path unlighted, without fear
Of poisonous snakes, or of any face in town.
Tall elms, my roots go down
As deep as yours into this soil, yes quite as deep.
And I here the rocking of my cradle. And I must not sleep.
Not for a nation; not for a little town,
Where, when the sun goes down, you may sit without fear
On the front porch, just out of reach of the arc-light, rocking,
With supper ready, wearing a pale new dress, and your baby near
In its crib, and your husband due to be home by the next trolley that you hear bumping into Elm Street--no:
But for a dream that was dreamt an elm-tree's life ago--
And longer, yes, much longer, and what I mean you know.
For the dream, for the plan, for the freedom of man as it was meant
To be;
Not for the structure set up so lustily, by rule of thumb
And over-night, bound to become
Loose, lop-sided, out of plumb,
But for the dream, for the plan, for the freedom of man as it was meant
To be
By men with more vision, more wisdom, more purpose, more brains
Than we,
(Possibly, possibly)
Men with more courage, men more unselfish, more intent
Than we, upon their dreams, upon their dream of Freedom,--Freedom not along
For oneself, but for all, wherever the word is known,
In whatever tongue, or the longing in whatever spirit--
Men with more honour. (That remains
To be seen! That we shall see!)
Possibly. Possibly.
And if still these truths be held to be
Self-evident.