| Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917. |
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| 11. Three Songs of Shattering |
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I
THE FIRST rose on my rose-tree | |
| Budded, bloomed, and shattered, | |
| During sad days when to me | |
| Nothing mattered. | |
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| Grief of grief has drained me clean; | 5 |
| Still it seems a pity | |
| No one saw,—it must have been | |
| Very pretty. | |
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II
Let the little birds sing; | |
| Let the little lambs play; | 10 |
| Spring is here; and so ’tis spring;— | |
| But not in the old way! | |
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| I recall a place | |
| Where a plum-tree grew; | |
| There you lifted up your face, | 15 |
| And blossoms covered you. | |
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| If the little birds sing, | |
| And the little lambs play, | |
| Spring is here; and so ’tis spring— | |
| But not in the old way! | 20 |
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III
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree! | |
| Ere spring was going—ah, spring is gone! | |
| And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,— | |
| Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on. | |
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| All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree, | 25 |
| Browned at the edges, turned in a day; | |
| And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me, | |
| And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way! | |
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