Renascence, and Other Poems

Renascence, and Other Poems is an early 20th-century collection by Edna St. Vincent Millay that brings together poems exploring love, loss, nature, and the human condition. Across the anthology, Millay’s voice is marked by lyric intensity and an ability to move between intimate emotion and broader reflections on existence. The poem “Renascence” offers a meditation on existence, presenting a personal awakening to the vastness of the universe and the tension between individual life and shared suffering. In “Interim,” she conveys the emptiness that follows the departure of a loved one, while “The Suicide” confronts life’s struggles directly. Other poems such as “God’s World” and “Afternoon on a Hill” highlight nature’s beauty, forming contrasts with sorrowful pieces like “Ashes of Life.”