Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was born in Maine. In 1912, she entered her poem “Renascence” in a competition, winning fourth place and inclusion in The Lyric Year, which earned her acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College. The poem would be included in her first collection, Renascence and Other Poems, published in 1917. After graduating, Vincent (as she insisted on being called) moved to Greenwich Village—then New York City’s bohemian district. To this period belong her poetry collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell (1921); and a play in one act, Aria da Capo (1920). After an extended trip to Europe, she returned to New York and published The Harp Weaver and Other Poems (1923). That year she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the first woman to be so honored. She also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand operas, The King’s Henchman (1927). Sympathetic to Marxism-Leninism, she was active in protests against the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, addressing the issue in Buck in the Snow (1928).

First Fig

This poem was originally published in Poetry in June 1918 and then collected in the book A Few Figs from Thistles (1920).

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

(1918)