First Fig

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!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Merry Maid

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

God's World

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Witch-Wife

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

The Little Ghost

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Sonnet IV

    Not in this chamber only at my birth--
        When the long hours of that mysterious night
        Were over, and the morning was in sight--
    I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
    I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
        And never shall one room contain me quite
        Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
    Child of all mothers, native of the earth.

    So is no warmth for me at any fire
        To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
    I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
    At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
    And straighten back in weariness, and long
        To gather up my little gods and go.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets IV

        Only until this cigarette is ended,
        A little moment at the end of all,
        While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
        And in the firelight to a lance extended,
        Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
        The broken shadow dances on the wall,
        I will permit my memory to recall
        The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
        And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
        Yours is a face of which I can forget
        The color and the features, every one,
        The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
        But in your day this moment is the sun
        Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets VII

        When I too long have looked upon your face,
        Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
        Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
        And terrible beauty not to be endured,
        I turn away reluctant from your light,
        And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
        A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
        From having looked too long upon the sun.
        Then is my daily life a narrow room
        In which a little while, uncertainly,
        Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
        Among familiar things grown strange to me
        Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
        Till I become accustomed to the dark.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Candle

Time like a cloud
Has risen from the East
And whelmed the sky over
Even to the wide-arched West,
Darkening the blue,
Embrowning the early gold,
Until no more the eternal Sun
Looks simply through.

In each man's eyes
The cloud is set,
With but the chill light
Of silver January skies.
On each man's heart
Time's firm shadow falls,
And the mind throws but a candle's beam
On the dark walls.

But on those walls
Man paints his dream
Rejoicing purely
In the faithful candle's beam:
Lives by its beauty,
Pictures his heart's delight,
And with that only beam outbraves
Time's gathering night.

O spiritual flame,
Calm, faithful, bright!
Time may whelm over
All but this candle's light:
Shadow but shad...

John Frederick Freeman

Sonnets VIII

        And you as well must die, beloved dust,
        And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
        This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
        This body of flame and steel, before the gust
        Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
        Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
        Than the first leaf that fell,--this wonder fled.
        Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.
        Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
        In spite of all my love, you will arise
        Upon that day and wander down the air
        Obscurely as the unattended flower,
        It mattering not how beautiful you were,
        Or how beloved above all else that dies.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets X

        Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
        How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
        More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
        And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
        How you and I, who scale together yet
        A little while the sweet, immortal height
        No pilgrim may remember or forget,
        As sure as the world turns, some granite night
        Shall lie awake and know the gracious flame
        Gone out forever on the mutual stone;
        And call to mind that on the day you came
        I was a child, and you a hero grown?--
        And the night pass, and the strange morning break
        Upon our anguish for each other's sake!

Edna St. Vincent Millay