Collected Poems

Collected Poems features Edna St. Vincent Millay’s incisive and impassioned poetry and sonnets, as well as the poet’s last volume, Mine the Harvest, compiled and published in 1956 by her sister Norma Millay. Alongside Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, and E. E. Cummings, Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression.

Millay, winner in 1923 of the second annual Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a daring, versatile writer whose work includes plays, essays, short stories, and songs. She infused new life into traditional poetic forms, bringing hope to a generation of youth disillusioned by the political and social upheaval of the First World War. She ventured fearlessly beyond familiar poetic subjects to tackle political injustice, social discrimination, and women’s sexuality in her poems and prose.

Yet Millay’s poetry is still decisively modern in its message, and it continues to resonate with readers facing personal and moral issues that defy the test of time: romantic love, loss, betrayal, compassion for one another, social equality, patriotism, and the stewardship of the natural world.

This invaluable compendium of her work is not only an essential addition to any collection of the world’s most moving and memorable poetry but an unprecedented look into the life of Millay.

My candle burns at both ends;

  It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

  It gives a lovely light!

“First Fig” from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920)