Two poems from “A Few Figs from Thistles”

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!

Midnight Oil

Cut if you will, with Sleep’s dull knife,

Each day to half its length, my friend, –

The years that Time takes off my life

He’ll take from off the other end!

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was one of America’s most widely read poets in her lifetime. She grew up in Rockland and Camden, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1923. After a decrease in readership during the 1960s and ’70s, her poetry regained attention by the 1990s, and her energy and mastery of language are again widely appreciated.