Edna Saint Vincent Millay's "When the Year Grows Old"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Today's end-of-the-year poem is Edna Saint Vincent Millay's "When the Year Grows Old." Happy New Year!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, filling in for David Kern. And today I'm going to
0:07.2	read a poem for you from one of my favorite poets. You've actually heard from me before, if you're a
0:13.9	regular listener, this poet, Edna, St. Vincent Malay. And as we are on December 31st, 2019, the very last day of the year, not only of the year, but of the decade. So I thought that this poem would be appropriate. When the Year grows old by Edna St. Vincent Malay. I cannot but remember when the year grows old,
0:39.3	October, November, how she disliked the cold.
0:44.3	She used to watch the swallows go down across the sky
0:48.3	and turn from the window with a little sharp sigh.
0:52.3	And often when the brown leaves were brittle on the ground
0:56.6	and the wind in the chimney made a melancholy sound, she had a look about her that I wish I could
1:03.9	forget, the look of a scared thing sitting in a net. Oh, beautiful at nightfall, the soft, spitting snow, and beautiful the
1:15.5	bare boughs rubbing to and fro. But the roaring of the fire and the warmth of fur, and the
1:22.9	boiling of the kettle were beautiful to her. I cannot but remember when the year grows old, October,
1:31.0	November, how she disliked the cold. So I think that the ending of the year for most of us
1:41.6	is a profound experience, especially this particular year when we're
1:47.8	moving not only from one year to the next, but from one decade to the next. So I wanted to read
1:54.6	this poem and point out a couple of little details about it that I think are really lovely.
1:59.6	The poem itself uses very
2:02.3	simple words. It uses a very regular kind of sing-songy rhythm and rhyme. It almost sounds like a
2:08.7	nursery rhyme as I'm reading it, but embedded within this kind of childlike structure that appeals
2:16.2	to everybody. The words aren't difficult to understand. It's
2:18.7	very easy to follow the rhymes. You kind of find yourself, you know, beating a rhythm along with it,
2:25.3	knowing what to expect in terms of the form. But in spite of that, there is just this very
2:31.7	profound reflection that compares a woman, the her of the poem. The poem is written
	...

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