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    A Few Figs from Thistles
    A Few Figs from Thistles
    A Few Figs from Thistles
    Ebook34 pages20 minutes

    A Few Figs from Thistles

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    4.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    Author

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters, and was encouraged by her mother to develop her talents for music and poetry. Her long poem "Renascence" won critical attention in an anthology contest in 1912 and secured for her a patron who enabled her to go to Vassar College. After graduating in 1917 she lived in Greenwich Village in New York for a few years, acting, writing satirical pieces for journals (usually under a pseudonym), and continuing to work at her poetry. She traveled in Europe throughout 1921-22 as a "foreign correspondent" for Vanity Fair. Her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) gained her a reputation for hedonistic wit and cynicism, but her other collections (including the earlier Renascence and Other Poems [1917]) are without exception more seriously passionate or reflective. In 1923 she married Eugene Boissevain and -- after further travel -- embarked on a series of reading tours which helped to consolidate her nationwide renown. From 1925 onwards she lived at Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, New York, where her husband protected her from all responsibilities except her creative work. Often involved in feminist or political causes (including the Sacco-Vanzetti case of 1927), she turned to writing anti-fascist propaganda poetry in 1940 and further damaged a reputation already in decline. In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor. She died in 1950.

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    Reviews for A Few Figs from Thistles

    4.5/5

    26 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This small book features some of Millay's early poetry. As with most collections, the poetry appeal varies from poem to poem. This collection, originally published in 1920, was expanded when republished in 1922. The "figs" were a couple of very short poems. I enjoyed the poems from the day when rhyme mattered.
    • 4/5
      This is one of the collections that earned a Pulitzer for Millay. The poems are infused with the passion of youth. They express a sense of restlessness, and a desire to live a life more full than the average woman's of her day. Whether or not it's what Millay intended, the message I took from these poems is “carpe diem.”
    • 5/5
      A treasure

    Book preview

    A Few Figs from Thistles - Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Project Gutenberg's A Few Figs from Thistles, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: A Few Figs from Thistles

    Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Posting Date: July 26, 2009 [EBook #4399] Release Date: August, 2003 First Posted: January 26, 2002

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEW FIGS FROM THISTLES ***

    Produced by David Starner

    A Few Figs from Thistles

    Poems and Sonnets

    by

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Thanks are due to the editors of Ainslie's, The Dial, Pearson's Poetry, Reedy's Mirror, and Vanity Fair, for their kind permission to republish various of these poems.

    This edition of A Few Figs from Thistles contains several poems not included in earlier editions.

    First Fig

      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!

    Second Fig

      Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

      Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

    Recuerdo

      We were very tired, we were very merry—

      We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

      It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—

      But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

      We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;

      And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

      We were very tired, we were very merry—

      We

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