God’s World by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Are you sometimes overwhelmed by the awesomeness of the world? Ever feel like saying, “Lord, I do fear | Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year”?

from The Theologian’s Almanac by the SALT Project.

February 22 is the birthday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, born “between the mountains and the sea” in Rockland, Maine, in 1892.  She was one of the most celebrated poets of her time, a free spirit and a romantic. In her younger days, she lived in an attic apartment on Bedford Street in New York City that was nine feet long and six feet wide; it was the narrowest house in the City, and today is known as “The Millay House.” She later lived in “Steepletop,” a sprawling property in Austerlitz, New York. After her death, the young poet Mary Oliver made her way to Steepletop to pay homage — and ended up staying there for seven years, helping Millay’s sister, Norma, organize the poet’s papers.

Here’s a taste of Millay’s theology (you can feel the influence on Oliver!):

“God's World”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! 
     Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! 
     Thy mists, that roll and rise! 
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag 
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag 
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! 
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! 

Long have I known a glory in it all, 
     But never knew I this; 
     Here such a passion is 
As stretcheth me apart, — Lord, I do fear 
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; 
My soul is all but out of me, — let fall 
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.