Here in a rocky cup

Edna St. Vincent Millay

1892 to 1950

Poem Image

Here in a rocky cup of earth
The simple acorn brought to birth
What has in ages grown to be
A very oak, a mighty tree.
The granite of the rock is split
And crumbled by the girth of it.

Incautious was the rock to feed
The acorn’s mouth; unwise indeed
Am I, upon whose stony heart
Fell softly down, sits quietly,
The seed of love’s imperial tree
That soon may force my breast apart.

“I fear you not. I have no doubt
My meagre soil shall starve you out!”

Unless indeed you prove to be
The kernel of a kingly tree;
Which if you be I am content
To go the way the granite went,
And be myself no more at all,
So you but prosper and grow tall.