Edna St. Vincent Millay, possibly the most gifted of the younger lyricists, was born February 22, 1892, at Rockland, Maine. After a childhood spent almost entirely in New England, she attended Vassar College, from which she was graduated in 1917. Since that time she has lived in New York City. Besides her keenly individual lyrics, Miss Millay has written a quantity of short stories under various pseudonyms, has translated several songs, and has been connected with the Provincetown Players both as playwright and performer. Although the bulk of her poetry is not large, the quality of it approaches and sometimes attains greatness. Her first long poem, “Renascence,” was the outstanding feature of _The Lyric Year_ (1912), an anthology which revealed many new names. “Renascence” was written when Miss Millay was scarcely nineteen; it remains today one of the most remarkable poems of this generation. Beginning like a child’s aimless verse it proceeds, with a calm lucidity, to an amazing climax. It is as if a child had, in the midst of its ingenuousness, uttered some terrific truth. The sheer cumulative power of this poem is surpassed only by its beauty. _Renascence_, the name of Miss Millay’s first volume, was published in 1917. It is full of the same passion as its title-poem; here is a hunger for beauty so intense that no delight is great enough to give the soul peace. Such poems as “God’s World” and the unnamed sonnets vibrate with this rapture. Magic burns from the simplest of her lines. _Figs from Thistles_ (1920) is a far more sophisticated booklet. Sharp and cynically brilliant, Miss Millay’s craftsmanship no less than her intuition saves these poems from mere cleverness. _Second April_ (1921) is an intensification of her lyrical gift tinctured with an increasing sadness and disillusion. Her poignant poetic play, _Aria da Capo_, first performed by the Provincetown Players in New York, was published in _The Monthly Chapbook_ (Harold Monro, England); the issue of July, 1920, being devoted to it. GOD’S WORLD 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. RENASCENCE{See Transcriber’s Note 1.}