BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 10, 2023
More than a century ago, a young woman with bright red hair hiked to the top of Mount Battie in Camden. She took in the view of the ocean and surrounding hills, and she wrote a poem. “All I could see from where I stood, was three long mountains and a wood,” it begins. “I turned and looked the other way, and saw three islands in a bay.” Published in 1912, the poem was called “Renascence.” The poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, was just 19 years old when she wrote it, and it instantly launched her to fame. Today, Millay (1892-1950) is memorialized atop Battie with a bronze plaque that includes an excerpt from the poem and a short explanation of her connection to the location.