Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was born in Maine, graduated from Vassar College in 1917, and became a well-known poet and playwright, with a strong feminist style. She was the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1923, for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver.

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To read Millay’s poem “Weeds” please click:

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Weeds

by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

White with daisies and red with sorrel
   And empty, empty under the sky!—
Life is a quest and love a quarrel—
   Here is a place for me to lie.

Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,
   And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
   Cursed by farmers thriftily.

But here, unhated for an hour,
   The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
   Like flowers that bear an honest name.

And here a while, where no wind brings
   The baying of a pack athirst,
May sleep the sleep of blessèd things,
   The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

“Weeds” from Second April (1921)

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