Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Dragonfly

I wound myself in a white cocoon of singing,
   All day long in the brook’s uneven bed,
   Measuring out my soul in a mucous thread;
Dimly now to the brook’s green bottom clinging,
   Men behold me, a worm spun-out and dead,
Walled in an iron house of silky singing.

Nevertheless at length, O reedy shallows,
   Not as a plodding nose to the slimy stem,
   But as a brazen wing with a spangled hem,
Over the jewel-weed and the pink marshmallows,
   Free of these and making a song of them,
I shall arise, and a song of the reedy shallows!

1. Three Songs from the Lamp and the Bell
2. My Heart, Being Hungry
3. Autumn Chant
4. Nuit Blanche
5. Say What You Will, and Scratch My Heart to Find

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