Poem of the Day

It’s my birthday, and I’ll post an ESVM sonnet if I want to!

It came into her mind, seeing how the snow
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

It came into her mind, seeing how the snow
Was gone, and the brown grass exposed again,
And clothes-pins, and an apron—long ago,
In some white storm that sifted through the pane
And sent her forth reluctantly at last
To gather in, before the line gave way,
Garments, board-stiff, that galloped on the blast
Clashing like angel armies in a fray,
And apron long ago in such a night
Blown down and buried in the deepening drift,
To lie till April thawed it back to sight,
Forgotten, quaint and novel as a gift—
It struck her, as she pulled and pried and tore,
That here was spring, and the whole year to be lived through once more.

I’ve been reading sonnets by my beloved ESVM tonight.

Not over-kind nor over-quick in study
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not over-kind nor over-quick in study
Nor skilled in sports nor beautiful was he,
Who had come into her life when anybody
Would have been welcome, so in need was she.
They had become acquainted in this way:
He flashed a mirror in her eyes at school;
By which he was distinguished; from that day
They went about together, as a rule.
She told, in secret and with whispering,
How he had flashed a mirror in her eyes;
And as she told, it struck her with surprise
That this was not so wonderful a thing.
But what’s the odds?—It’s pretty nice to know
You’ve got a friend to keep you company everywhere you go.

It was pointed out that I’ve never posted this poem by my beloved ESVM. One can never read too much of ESVM’s poetry (as I may have mentioned in the past) and I’m glad that there will always be more of her poems to post (it would take longer than I will likely be posting poems to share them all).

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripèd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it’s much too small, because she won’t curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.

But you do not wake up a month from then, two months,
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,—mothers and fathers don’t die.

And if you have said, “For heaven’s sake, must you always be kissing a person?”
Or, “I do wish to gracious you’d stop tapping on the window with your thimble!”
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you’re busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, “I’m sorry, mother.”

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries; they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.

For my dearest Jennifer, on her birthday, I always post an ESVM poem. This (untitled) poem is in the “Poems Which Have Not Appeared in Any of the Previous Volumes” section of her Collected Poems. I do love her (rather negative) commentary on the human race, with which (sadly) I often agree.

We have gone too far; we do not know how to stop
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

We have gone too far; we do not know how to stop: impetus
Is all we have. And we share it with the pushed Inert.

We are clever,—we are as clever as monkeys; and some of us
Have intellect, which is our danger, for we lack intelligence
And have forgotten instinct.

Progress—progress is the dirtiest word in the language—who ever told us—
And made us believe it—that to take a step forward was necessarily, was always
A good idea?
In this unlighted cave, one step forward
That step can be the down-step into the Abyss.
But we, we have no sense of direction; impetus
Is all we have; we do not proceed, we only
Roll down the mountain,
Like disbalanced boulders, crushing before us many
Delicate springing things, whose plan it was to grow.

Clever, we are, and inventive,—but not creative;
For, to create, one must decide—the cells must decide—what form,
What colour, what sex, how many petals, five, or more than five,
Or less than five.

But we, we decide nothing: the bland Opportunity
Presents itself, and we embrace it,—we are so grateful
When something happens which is not directly War;
For we think—although of course, now, we very seldom
Clearly think—
That the other side of War is Peace.

We have no sense; we only roll downhill. Peace
Is the temporary beautiful ignorance that War
Somewhere progresses.

Edna, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Mist in the Valley
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

These hills, to hurt me more,
That am hurt already enough,—
Having left the sea behind,
Having turned suddenly and left the shore
That I had loved beyond all words, even a song’s words, to convey,

And built me a house on upland acres,
Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long before the winter’s done,
But smelling never of bayberry hot in the sun,
Nor ever loud with the pounding of the long white breakers,—

These hills, beneath the October moon,
Sit in the valley white with mist
Like islands in a quiet bay,

Jut out from shore into the mist,
Wooded with poplar dark as pine,
Like points of land into a quiet bay.

(Just in the way
The harbour met the bay)

Stricken too sore for tears,
I stand, remembering the Islands and the sea’s lost sound. . . .
Life at its best no longer than the sand-peep’s cry,
And I two years, two years,
Tilling an upland ground!

Today is a day for an ESVM poem, without question. I’ve posted so many of hers and don’t currently have any in my file, so I revisited her Collected Poems. It’s been far too long since I’ve done that.

Journey
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.

               Yet onward!
                                 Cat birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.

Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road;
A gateless garden, and an open path;
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

I recently listened to an audiobook version of Anne of Green Gables, which was like visiting an old childhood friend. Of course, Anne’s dramatization of the story of Elaine was based on Tennyson’s poem, but as I haven’t posted anything from ESVM in ages and I’ve already shared The Lady of Shalott, I thought I’d post this one.

Elaine
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, come again to Astolat!
I will not ask you to be kind.
And you may go when you will go,
And I will stay behind.

I will not say how dear you are,
Or ask you if you hold me dear,
Or trouble you with things for you
The way I did last year.

So still the orchard, Lancelot,
So very still the lake shall be,
You could not guess—though you should guess—
What is become of me.

So wide shall be the garden-walk,
The garden-seat so very wide,
You needs must think—if you should think—
The lily maid had died.

Save that, a little way away,
I’d watch you for a little while,
To see you speak, the way you speak,
And smile,—if you should smile.

Time for something from Edna!

Gazing upon him now, severe and dead
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Gazing upon him now, severe and dead,
It seemed a curious thing that she had lain
Beside him many a night in that cold bed,
And that had been which would not be again.
From his desirous body the great heat
Was gone at last, it seemed, and the taut nerves
Loosened forever. Formally the sheet
Set forth for her today those heavy curves
And lengths familiar as the bedroom door.
She was one who enters, sly, and proud,
To where her husband speaks before a crowd,
And sees a man she never saw before—
The man who eats his victuals at her side,
Small, and absurd, and hers: for once, not hers, unclassified.

Yesterday was my birthday and I was occupied all day and regretfully missed posting the PotD. I do like to post ESVM on my birthday, so I’m just going to do it a day late. I can’t believe I’ve never posted this one before! Part II is my favorite, though I’m always amused by part V as well.

From a Very Little Sphinx
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I

Come along in then, little girl!
Or else stay out!
But in the open door she stands,
And bites her lip and twists her hands,
And stares upon me, trouble-eyed:
“Mother,” she says, “I can’t decide!
I can’t decide!”

II

Oh, burdock, and you other dock,
That have ground coffee for your seeds,
And lovely long thin daisies, dear—
She said that you were weeds!
She said, “Oh, what a fine bouquet!”
But afterwards I heard her say,
“She’s always dragging in those weeds.”

III

Everybody but just me
Despises burdocks. Mother, she
Despises ‘em the most because
They stick so to my socks and drawers.
But father, when he sits on some,
Can’t speak a decent word for ‘em.

IV

I know a hundred ways to die.
I’ve often thought that I’d try one:
Lie down beneath a motor truck
Some day when standing by one.

Or throw myself from off a bridge—
Except such things must be
So hard upon the scavengers
And men that clean the sea.

I know some poison I could drink.
I’ve often thought I’d taste it.
But mother bought it for the sink,
And drinking it would waste it.

V

Look, Edwin! Do you see that boy
Talking to the other boy?
No, over there by the two men—
Wait, don’t look now—now look again.
No, not the one in navy-blue;
That’s the one he’s talking to.
Sure you see him? Stripèd pants?
Well, he was born in Paris, France.

VI

All the grown-up people say,
“What, those ugly thistles?
Mustn’t touch them! Keep away!
Prickly! Full of bristles!”

Yet they never make me bleed
Half so much as roses!
Must be purple is a weed,
and pink and white is posies.

VII

Wonder where this horseshoe went.
Up and down, up and down,
Up and past the monument,
Maybe into town.

Wait a minute. “Horseshoe,
How far have you been?”
Says it’s been to Salem
And halfway to Lynn.

Wonder who was in the team.
Wonder what they saw.
Wonder if they passed a bridge—
Bridge with a draw.

Says it went from one bridge
Straight upon another.
Says it took a little girl
Driving with her mother.

How very exciting! I joined a poetry community through GoodReads and posted about ESVM (surprise, surprise). In a response I (re)discovered this poem, which hadn’t really been on my radar, but which I think is wonderful!

On Thought in Harness
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

My falcon to my wrist
Returns
From no high air.
I sent her toward the sun that burns
Above this mist;
But she has not been there.

Her talons are not cold; her beak
Is closed upon no wonder;
Her head stinks of its hood, her feathers reek
Of me, that quake at the thunder.

Degraded bird, I give you back your eyes forever, ascend now whither you are tossed;
Forsake this wrist, forsake this rhyme;
Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost,
But climb.

I’m off to NJ for the holidays, so we’ll see if I manage to keep the PotD going. I’m optimistic.

The Return
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Earth does not understand her child,
   Who from the loud gregarious town
Returns, depleted and defiled,
   To the still woods, to fling him down.

Earth cannot count the sons she bore:
   The wounded lynx, the wounded man
Come trailing blood unto her door;
   She shelters both as best she can.

But she is early up and out,
   To trim the year or strip its bones;
She has no time to stand about
   Talking of him in undertones

Who has no aim but to forget
   Be left in peace, be lying thus
For days, for years, for centuries yet,
   Unshaven and anonymous;

Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,
   Has traded in his wife and friend
For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:
   Comfort that does not comprehend.

This is for my dear Miss Jennifer.

Autumn Daybreak
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud
At dawn, a fortnight overdue,
Jostling the doors, and tearing through
My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,

I know—for I can hear the hiss
And scrape of leaves along the floor—
How may boughs, lashed bare by this,
Will rake the cluttered sky once more.

Tardy, and somewhat south of east,
The sun will rise at length, made known
More by the meagre light increased
Than by a disk in splendour shown;

When, having but to turn my head,
Through the stripped maple I shall see,
Bleak and remembered, patched with red,
The hill all summer hid from me.

Current Tea: Valentine’s blend (black tea with chocolate and rosebuds)

Now that I’m with my dearest Jennifer in Virginia and we’re going to spend a lovely day complete with a hike, I couldn’t resist this poem. Ah, how we both love Edna…

Afternoon on a Hill
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

According to my Excel spreadsheet, this is my 1000th poem. Of course, I had to share something by ESVM!

To Inez Milholland
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Read in Washington, November eighteenth, 1923, at the unveiling of a statue of three leaders in the cause of Equal Rights for Women

Upon this marble bust that is not I
Lay the round, formal wreath that is not fame;
But in the forum of my silenced cry
Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.
I, that was proud and valiant, am no more;—
Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.
Only my standard on a taken hill
Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust
And make immortal my adventurous will.
Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

I need some ESVM today.

Once more into my arid days like dew
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Once more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
A treacherous messenger, the thought of you
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
Long since to be but just one other mound
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
And once again, and wiser in no wise,
I chase your coloured phantom on the air,
And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise
And stumble pitifully on to where,
Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,
Once more I clasp,—and there is nothing there.

Current Tea: Thai iced tea

I totally understand the sentiment of this poem and often wish my rational self could beat down my emotional self.

The Philosopher
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

And what are you that, wanting you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
And looking at the wall?

I know a man that’s a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?

Yet women’s ways are witless ways,
As any sage will tell,—
And what am I, that I should love
So wisely and so well?

It’s my birthday, so I’m going to post an ESVM poem. (That makes perfect sense to me, at least!) This was not published in any of her poetry collections during her lifetime, but it’s in her Collected Poems.

If, in the Foggy Aleutians
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not ever, now, any more, upon this mildewed planet
Shines the sweet, wholesome sun: we live in fog.
Our leaves grow large and green, but we bear no blossom;
No coloured hope unfolds, no poem speaks out
In Dutch, Korean, English or Tagalog.

Yet, if, in the foggy Aleutians, if on the misty
Island of Kiska, island of Attu, any
Flower, however weak and bleak, appears
In spring, between the cloudy craters, why then, although
It should take us a thousand years,
We can stare into the fog until it shines, we can force it to unfold us.
We must ask the men who have been there; they will know.

I need to stop my slide into ESVM withdrawal.

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give me back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
“What a big book for such a little head!”
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

After a hectic (but fun) “vacation” over the holidays, and a long drive, I’m back home and sick as a dog. However, I do want to start up the PotD again, so let’s ease in with a selection from ESVM (who else?).

I see so clearly now my similar years
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I see so clearly now my similar years
Repeat each other, shod in rusty black,
Like one hack following another hack
In meaningless procession, dry of tears,
Driven empty, lest the noses sharp as shears
Of gutter-urchins at a hearse’s back
Should sniff a man died friendless, and attack
With silly scorn his deaf triumphant ears;
I see so clearly now how my life must run
One year behind another year until
At length these bones that leap into the sun
Are lowered into the gravel, and lie still,
I would at times the funeral were done
And I abandoned on the ultimate hill.

Since you can never have too much ESVM and since it’s my wonderful fellow ESVM-lover Jennifer’s birthday, here’s another sonnet from our favorite poet.

I pray you if you love me, bear my joy
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I pray you if you love me, bear my joy
A little while, or let me weep your tears;
I, too, have seen the quavering Fate destroy
Your destiny’s bright spinning—the dull shears
Meeting not neatly, chewing at the thread,—
Nor can you well be less aware how fine,
How staunch as wire, and how unwarrented
Endures the golden fortune that is mine.
I pray you for this day at least, my dear,
Fare by my side, that journey in the sun;
Else must I turn me from the blossoming year
And walk in grief the way that you have gone.
Let us go forth together to the spring:
Love must be this, if it be anything.

ESVM was in the crossword puzzle today so I took that as a sign that I should post one of her poems.

Loving you less than life, a little less
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Loving you less than life, a little less
Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall
Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess
I cannot swear I love you not at all.
For there is that about you in this light—
A yellow darkness, sinister of rain—
Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight
To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.
And I am made aware of many a week
I shall consume, remembering in what way
Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek,
And what divine absurdities you say:
Till all the world, and I, and surely you,
Will know I love you, whether or not I do.

Having just left my dear Jennifer (and missing her terribly already!), I thought I’d post a poem by our favorite poet…

If I should learn, in some quite casual way
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man, who happened to be you,
At noon today had happened to be killed—
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face;
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

I’ve missed ESVM, haven’t you?

Feast
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.

I gnawed at every root.
I ate of every plant.
I came upon no fruit
So wonderful as want.

Feed the grape and bean
To the vintner and monger:
I will lie down lean
With my thirst and my hunger.

Time for another ESVM!

Lines Written in Recapitulation
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I could not bring this splendid world nor any trading beast
In charge of it, to defer, no, not to give ear, not in the least
Appearance, to my handsome prophecies,
which here I ponder and put by.

I am left simpler, less encumbered, by the consciousness
that I shall by no pebble in my dirty sling avail
To slay one purple giant four feet high and distribute arms
among his tall attendants, who spit at his name
when spitting on the ground:
They will be found one day Prone where they fell, or dead sitting
—and pock-marked wall
Supporting the beautiful back straight as an oak
before it is old.

I have learned to fail. And I have had my say.
Yet shall I sing until my voice crack
(this being my leisure, this my holiday)
That man was a special thing, and no commodity,
a thing improper to be sold.

Here’s another from ESVM—short, sweet, and to the point.

Souvenir
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Just a rainy day or two
In a windy tower,
That was all I had of you—
Saving half an hour.

Marred by greeting passing groups
In a cinder walk,
Near some naked blackberry hoops
Dim with purple chalk.
I remember three or four
Things you said in spite,
And an ugly coat you wore,
Plaided black and white.

Just a rainy day or two
And a bitter word.
Why do I remember you
As a singing bird?

How about a nice (not so) cheerful poem from ESVM?

Mariposa
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Butterflies are white and blue
In this field we wander through.
Suffer me to take your hand.
Death comes in a day or two.

All the things we ever knew
Will be ashes in that hour,
Mark the transient butterfly,
How he hangs upon the flower.

Suffer me to take your hand.
Suffer me to cherish you
Till the dawn is in the sky.
Whether I be false or true,
Death comes in a day or two.

This seemed quite appropriate today!

Spring
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

The trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti was a travesty of the American justice system. Today’s poems were written by ESVM in memory of them. She wrote another poem about them also.

Two Sonnets in Memory
Nicola Sacco — Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Executed August 23, 1927
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I

As men have loved their lovers in times past
And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace,
So have we loved sweet Justice to the last,
That now lies here in an unseemly place.
The child will quit the cradle and grow wise
And stare on beauty till his senses drown;
Yet shall be seen no more by mortal eyes
Such beauty as here walked and here went down.
Like birds that hear the winter crying plain
Her courtiers leave to seek the clement south;
Many have praised her, we alone remain
To break a fist against the lying mouth
Of any man who says this was not so:
Though she be dead now, as indeed we know.

II

Where can the heart be hidden in the ground
And be at peace, and be at peace forever,
Under the world, untroubled by the sound
Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never?
Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried,
If death be deeper than the churchmen say, –
Gone from this world indeed what’s graveward carried,
And laid to rest indeed what’s laid away.
Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather
Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor’s hand;
Who would eternal be, and hang in ether
A stuffless ghost above his struggling land,
Retching in vain to render up the groan
That is not there, being aching dust’s alone?

Sometimes you just need some ESVM!

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
“Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”

I see it’s time for another ESVM poem. See if you can guess what this one makes me think of.

The Betrothal
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,
And love me if you like.
I shall not hear the door shut
Nor the knocker strike.

Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,
And wed me if you will.
I’d make a man a good wife,
Sensible and still.

And why should I be cold, my lad,
And why should you repine,
Because I love a dark head
That never will be mine?

I might as well be easing you
As lie alone in bed
And waste the night in wanting
A cruel dark head.

You might as well be calling yours
What never will be his,
And one of us be happy.
There’s few enough as is.

Time for more ESVM!

I know I am but summer to your heart
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.