Sonnet I

    Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
        Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
        Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
    Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
    From left to right, not knowing where to go,
        I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
        Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
    So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.

    Like him who day by day unto his draught
        Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
    Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
    Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
        Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
    I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Elegy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Prayer To Persephone

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Indifference

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Wraith

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

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Sonnets VI

        No rose that in a garden ever grew,
        In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine,
        Though buried under centuries of fine
        Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew
        Forever, and forever lost from view,
        But must again in fragrance rich as wine
        The grey aisles of the air incarnadine
        When the old summers surge into a new.
        Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart,"
        'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear,
        'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece;
        And thus as well my love must lose some part
        Of what it is, had Helen been less fair,
        Or perished young, or stayed at home in Greece.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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 V

        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 colored 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.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet I

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And drag me at your chariot till I die,--
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!--
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple worshiper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)

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

Sonnets II

        Into the golden vessel of great song
        Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
        Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
        Not we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue
        Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
        Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
        Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
        The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
        Longing alone is singer to the lute;
        Let still on nettles in the open sigh
        The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
        As any man, and love be far and high,
        That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
        Found on the ground by every passer-by.

Edna St. Vincent Millay