Portrait by a Neighbor (Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950)

Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!

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From A Few Figs From Thistles, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922. p. 28-29.

Classic Poetry: "Eel-Grass" (Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950)

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Edna St. Vincent Millay, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933.
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No matter what I say,

All that I really love

Is the rain that flattens on the bay,

And the eel-grass in the cove;

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SaveBayNarragansett

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Millay, 1914, a publicity photograph (per Daniel Mark Epstein, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, p. 135), taken 1914.

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SaveBayNarragansett

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The jingle-shells that lie and bleach

At the tide-line, and the trace

Of higher tides along the beach:

Nothing in this place.

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All About Eel-grass Restoration



SaveBayNarragansett says,

Save The Bay - Narragansett Bay's Wenley Ferguson explains how we restore eelgrass and why it is so important. Recorded at King's Beach, Newport Rhode Island, May 29, 2008.

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