| Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917. |
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| 16. Blight |
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| HARD seeds of hate I planted | |
| That should by now be grown,— | |
| Rough stalks, and from thick stamens | |
| A poisonous pollen blown, | |
| And odors rank, unbreathable, | 5 |
| From dark corollas thrown! | |
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| At dawn from my damp garden | |
| I shook the chilly dew; | |
| The thin boughs locked behind me | |
| That sprang to let me through; | 10 |
| The blossoms slept,—I sought a place | |
| Where nothing lovely grew. | |
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| And there, when day was breaking, | |
| I knelt and looked around: | |
| The light was near, the silence | 15 |
| Was palpitant with sound; | |
| I drew my hate from out my breast | |
| And thrust it in the ground. | |
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| Oh, ye so fiercely tended, | |
| Ye little seeds of hate! | 20 |
| I bent above your growing | |
| Early and noon and late, | |
| Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,— | |
| I cannot rear ye straight! | |
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| The sun seeks out my garden, | 25 |
| No nook is left in shade, | |
| No mist nor mold nor mildew | |
| Endures on any blade, | |
| Sweet rain slants under every bough: | |
| Ye falter, and ye fade. | 30 |
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