Edna St. Vincent Millay (Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей)
Two Sonnets in Memory
(Nicola Sacco -- Bartolomeo Vanzetti) Executed August 23, 1927 I As men have loved their lovers in times past And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace, So have we loved sweet Justice to the last, That now lies here in an unseemly place. The child will quit the cradle and grow wise And stare on beauty till his senses drown; Yet shall be seen no more by mortal eyes Such beauty as here walked and here went down. Like birds that hear the winter crying plain Her courtiers leave to seek the clement south; Many have praised her, we alone remain To break a fist against the lying mouth Of any man who says this was not so: Though she be dead now, as indeed we know. II Where can the heart be hidden in the ground And be at peace, and be at peace forever, Under the world, untroubled by the sound Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never? Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried, If death be deeper than the churchmen say, -- Gone from this world indeed what’s graveward carried, And laid to rest indeed what’s laid away. Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor’s hand; Who would eternal be, and hang in ether A stuffless ghost above his struggling land, Retching in vain to render up the groan That is not there, being aching dust’s alone?
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s other poems:
974
