The Fledgling

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



So, art thou feahered, art thou flown,
Thou naked thing?—and canst alone
Upon the unsolid summer air
Sustain thyself, and prosper there?
Shall  no more with anxious note
Advise thee  through the happy day,
Thrusting the worm into thy throat,
Bearing thine excrement away?
Alas, I think I see thee yet,
Perched on the windy parapet,
Defer thy flight a moment still
To clean thy wing with careful bill.
And thou are feathered, thou art flown;
And hast a project of thine own.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

25 sec read
314

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCDCDEEFFAA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 470
Words 86
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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