Number 307: Edna St. Vincent Millay "God's World"

God's World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Hap Notes: There is nothing to compare with the awe-struck terrifying feeling of being in love with the universe and all that reside within it. Millay is not just talking about thinking things are beautiful. She is talking about finding a religious ecstasy in the common uncommon gorgeousness of the world. She almost seems to be channeling Gerard Manly Hopkins here, doesn't she?

Millay swoons over her desire to be one with the universe like a Romantic poet in this poem. (Almost like Shelley's "Serenade" of yesterday.)She is swept away by the grandeur of creation, she is faint with the magnificence of nature.

I hope you, also, experience or have experienced this for yourself. There is no feeling that is more wonderfully scary and nothing will ever seem as important again compared to this universal magic.

Here is where we have talked about Millay before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-11-edna-st-vincent-millay.html

The masthead is a painting, "Bungalow Evening", by Kathleen Eaton, of whom I am an unbridled admirer. Here is her website: eatonart.com/ke/ke-intro-frm.html