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April is National Poetry Month!
Apr. 30th, 2008 12:47 pmAnd now my other favorite spring-themed Millay poem. This is from the 1953 volume Mine the Harvest, much later in her career, and she is an older and more mature poet.
This poem feels so utterly close to the earth that I feel like I can read in that moment when the snow turns into rain, when the first flowers start to bloom, when the air begins to soften from killing cold into something just this side of bearability, and I feel the wild excitement of spring stirring inside me. I wear this poem inside my head from February until July.
It's more of a March sentiment than an April thing, but they pair strangely in my mind; this is the sequel-prelude to the sour ponderings of 1921's "Spring;" it is her own answer, if she even remembered asking the question--"To what purpose do you return again?" To no purpose, she knows now, but that doesn't matter. Don't look for purpose in nature. Spring simply returns because it is time.
"New England Spring, 1942"
The rush of rain against the glass
Is louder than my noisy mind
Crying, "Alas!"
The rain shouts: "Hear me, how I melt the ice that clamps the bent and frozen grass!
Winter cannot come twice
Even this year!
I break it up; I make it water the roots of spring!
I am the harsh beginning, poured in torrents down the hills,
And dripping from the trees and soaking, later, and when the wind is still
Into the roots of flowers, which your eyes, incredulous, soon will suddenly find!
Comfort is almost here."
That sap goes up the maple; it drips fast
From the tapped maple into the tin pail
Through the tubes of hollow elder, the pails brim;
Birds with scarlet throats and yellow bellies sip from the pail's rim.
Snow falls thick; it is sifted
Through cracks about windows and under doors;
It is drifted through hedges into country roads. It cannot last.
Winter is past.
It is hurling back at us boasts of no avail.
But Spring is wise. Pale and with gentle eyes, one day somewhat she advances;
The next, with a flurry of snow into flake-filled skies retreats before the heat in our eyes and the thing designed
By the sick and longing mind in its lonely fancies--
The sally which would force her and take her.
And Spring is kind.
Should she come running headlong into a wind-whipped acre
Of daffodil skirts down the mountain into this dark valley, we would go blind.
So, April was National Poetry Month.
I like that, I like doing this in the spring, which is always such a weird time for me, the dragging grimness of winter giving way into rain which gives way into color, and then the world becomes hot and green and sleepy. I don't think I'd really have the energy any other time of year, but spring makes me restless, and you should be twitchy when you read poetry, because you'll hear better it then.
This poem feels so utterly close to the earth that I feel like I can read in that moment when the snow turns into rain, when the first flowers start to bloom, when the air begins to soften from killing cold into something just this side of bearability, and I feel the wild excitement of spring stirring inside me. I wear this poem inside my head from February until July.
It's more of a March sentiment than an April thing, but they pair strangely in my mind; this is the sequel-prelude to the sour ponderings of 1921's "Spring;" it is her own answer, if she even remembered asking the question--"To what purpose do you return again?" To no purpose, she knows now, but that doesn't matter. Don't look for purpose in nature. Spring simply returns because it is time.
"New England Spring, 1942"
The rush of rain against the glass
Is louder than my noisy mind
Crying, "Alas!"
The rain shouts: "Hear me, how I melt the ice that clamps the bent and frozen grass!
Winter cannot come twice
Even this year!
I break it up; I make it water the roots of spring!
I am the harsh beginning, poured in torrents down the hills,
And dripping from the trees and soaking, later, and when the wind is still
Into the roots of flowers, which your eyes, incredulous, soon will suddenly find!
Comfort is almost here."
That sap goes up the maple; it drips fast
From the tapped maple into the tin pail
Through the tubes of hollow elder, the pails brim;
Birds with scarlet throats and yellow bellies sip from the pail's rim.
Snow falls thick; it is sifted
Through cracks about windows and under doors;
It is drifted through hedges into country roads. It cannot last.
Winter is past.
It is hurling back at us boasts of no avail.
But Spring is wise. Pale and with gentle eyes, one day somewhat she advances;
The next, with a flurry of snow into flake-filled skies retreats before the heat in our eyes and the thing designed
By the sick and longing mind in its lonely fancies--
The sally which would force her and take her.
And Spring is kind.
Should she come running headlong into a wind-whipped acre
Of daffodil skirts down the mountain into this dark valley, we would go blind.
So, April was National Poetry Month.
I like that, I like doing this in the spring, which is always such a weird time for me, the dragging grimness of winter giving way into rain which gives way into color, and then the world becomes hot and green and sleepy. I don't think I'd really have the energy any other time of year, but spring makes me restless, and you should be twitchy when you read poetry, because you'll hear better it then.