Second April

Name: Second April
Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Pages: about 28
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 31 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 17 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

God had called us, and we came; Our loved Earth to ashes left; Heaven was a neighbor's house, Open to us, bereft.
Gay the lights of Heaven showed, And 'twas God who walked ahead; Yet I wept along the road, Wanting my own house instead.
Wept unseen, unheeded cried, "All you things my eyes have kissed, Fare you well! We meet no more, Lovely, lovely tattered mist!
Weary wings that rise and fall All day long above the fire!"-- Red with heat was every wall, Rough with heat was every wire--
"Fare you well, you little winds That the flying embers chase! Fare you well, you shuddering day, With your hands before your face!
And, ah, blackened by strange blight, Or to a false sun unfurled, Now forevermore goodbye, All the gardens in the world!
On the windless hills of Heaven, That I have no wish to see, White, eternal lilies stand, By a lake of ebony.
But the Earth forevermore Is a place where nothing grows,-- Dawn will come, and no bud break; Evening, and no blossom close.
Spring will come, and wander slow Over an indifferent land, Stand beside an empty creek, Hold a dead seed in her hand."
God had called us, and we came, But the blessed road I trod Was a bitter road to me, And at heart I questioned God.
"Though in Heaven," I said, "be all That the heart would most desire, Held Earth naught save souls of sinners Worth the saving from a fire?
Withered grass,--the wasted growing! Aimless ache of laden boughs!" Little things God had forgotten Called me, from my burning house.
"Though in Heaven," I said, "be all That the eye could ask to see, All the things I ever knew Are this blaze in back of me."
"Though in Heaven," I said, "be all That the ear could think to lack, All the things I ever knew Are this roaring at my back."

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Second April

From the opening

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