Millay-a-Day

We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

Need: “Passer Mortuus Est”: “To Inez Milholland”; Sonnet “(Time, that renews tissue of this frame)”: Epitaph for the Race of Man; Sonnet in Dialectic; { I will put chaos in fourteen lines)

I can indeed!  

Here is the full list of poems, with the ones you requested bolded:

Afternoon on a Hill

[If I should learn in some quite casual way]

Recuerdo

[I think I should have loved you presently]

Passer Mortuus Est

Alms

Dirge (from Memorial to D.C.)

Dirge without Music

To Inez Milholland

[Even in the moment of our earliest kiss]

[Time, that renews the tissues of this frame]

Conscientious Objector

Epitaph for the Race of Man (18-sonnet sequence)

Sonnet in Dialectic

[I will put Chaos into fourteen lines]

Boys and girls that held her dear,  Do your weeping now; All you loved of her lies here.

Brought to earth the arrogant brow,  And the withering tongue Chastened; do your weeping now.

Sing whatever songs are sung,  Wind whatever wreath, For a playmate perished young,  For a spirit spent in death.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,— They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Had I known you were going I would have given you messages for her, Now two years dead, Whom I shall always love.

As it is, should she entreat you how it goes with me, You must reply; as well as most, you fancy’ That I love easily, and pass the time.

And she will not know how all day long between My life and me her shadow intervenes, A young thin girl, Wearing a white skirt and a purple sweater And a narrow pale blue ribbon about her hair.

I used to say to her, “I love you Because your face is such a pretty colour, No other reason.”

But it was not true.

I know why the yellow forsythia Holds its breath and will not bloom, And the robin thrusts his beak in his wing.

Want me to tell you?  Think you can bear it? Cover your eyes with your hand and hear it. You know how cold the days are still? And everybody saying how late the Spring is? Well---cover yours eyes with your hand---the thing is, There isn’t going to be any Spring.

No parking here!  No parking here! They said to Spring: No parking here!

Spring came on as she always does, Laid her hand on the yellow forsythia,--- Little boys turned in their sleep and smiled, Dreaming of marbles, dreaming of agates; Little girls leapt from their beds to see Spring come by with her painted wagons, Coloured wagons creaking with wonder---

Laid her hand on the robin’s throat; When up comes you-know-who, my dear, You-know-who in a fine blue coat, And says to spring: No parking here!

No parking here!  No parking here! Move on!  Move on!  No parking here!

Come walk with me in the city gardens. (Better keep an eye out for you-know-who) Did ever you see such a sickly showing?--- Middle of June, and nothing growing; The gardeners peer and scratch their heads And drop their sweat on tulip-beds, But not a blade thrusts through.

Come, move on!  Don't you know how to walk? No parking here!  And no back-talk!

Oh, well,---hell, it’s all for the best. She certainly made a lot of clutter, Dropping petals under the trees, Taking your mind off your bread and butter.

Anyhow, it’s nothing to me. I can remember, and so can you. (Though we’d better watch out for you-know-who, When we sit around remembering Spring).

Desolation dreamed of, though not accomplished, Set my heart to rocking like a boat in a swell. To every face I met, I said farewell.

Green rollers breaking white along a clean beach . . . when shall I reach that island? Gladly, O painted nails and shaven arm-pits, would I see less of you! Gladly, gladly would I be far from you for a long time, O noise and stench of man!

Poor passionate thing, Even with this clipped wing how well you flew!--though not so far as the forest.

Unwounded and unspent, serene but for the eyes bright trouble, Was it the lurching flight, the unequal wind under the lopped feathers that brought you down, To sit in folded colours on the level empty field, Visible as a ship, paling the yellow stubble?

Not dead of wounds, not borne Home to the village on a litter or branches, torn By splendid claws and the talk all night of the villagers, But stung to death by gnats Lies Love.