A Few Figs from Thistles (ISBN 1605975524)

My candle burns at both ends:
"My candle bums at both ends/It will not last the night/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--/It gives a lovely light!" That famous poem is a suitable opening to the whimsical, quirky volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry, "A Few Figs From Thistles." These poems capture Millay at her most charming, full of lyrical poetry and enchanting imagery, though she also dips into darker, more fey territory. After Millay's ode to her candle, she begins exploring the beauties of nighttime wanderings and eating fruit, disliking Thursdays, love ballads, beautiful roads, mythic beauties like Daphne, and the woes of being a poet ("Still must the poet as of old,/In barren attic bleak and cold,/Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to/Such things as flowers and song and you..."). The book ends with four superb little sonnets, which show that the basic lyrical poem is not the only kind that Millay could do well. The poems seem to explore different stages of love: the first is passionate and adoring, the second is loving but more aware of both lovers' flaws, and the third fiercely announces that she isn't in love and "were you not lovely I would leave you now." The last one dismisses the ex-lover completely, with "I shall forget you presently, my dear,/So make the most of this, your little day,/Your little month, your little half a year,/Ere I forget, or die, or move away." Ouch. Edna St. Vincent Millay is perhaps at her most relaxed in "A Few Figs From Thistles," which is less self-conscious about her flowery language. Many of the songs are reminiscent of old ballads ("MacDougal Street") or mischievous nursery rhymes ("What should I be but a prophet and a liar/Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?"). But though "A Few Figs From Thistles" is less self-conscious about its language, Millay hadn't lost her knack for spinning beauiful webs of words. And she hadn't lost her exquisite knack for nature descriptions ("And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold/And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold"). "A Few Figs from Thistles" is an great collection of Edna St. Vincent Millay's exquisite poetry. Full of mischief, play, and enchanting imagery, this is Millay at her peak.