When the Year Grows Old by Edna St. Vincent Millay

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 21, 2014   When the Year Grows Old   Edna St. Vincent Millay

I cannot but remember   When the year grows old— October—November—   How she disliked the cold!   She used to watch the swallows   Go down across the sky, And turn from the window   With a little sharp sigh.   And often when the brown leaves   Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney   Made a melancholy sound,   She had a look about her   That I wish I could forget— The look of a scared thing   Sitting in a net!   Oh, beautiful at nightfall   The soft spitting snow! And beautiful the bare boughs   Rubbing to and fro!   But the roaring of the fire,   And the warmth of fur, And the boiling of the kettle   Were beautiful to her!   I cannot but remember   When the year grows old— October—November—   How she disliked the cold!            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “When the Year Grows Old” was published in Millay’s book Renascence and Other Poems (M. Kennerley, 1917).   Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. She published numerous books of poems including The Harp Weaver (1923) which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She died in 1950. Poetry by Millay   The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library, 2002) "When You are Old" by W. B. Yeats "Now Winter Nights Enlarge" by Thomas Campion "In drear nighted December" by John Keats Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038