Sonnet III

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now;
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you--think not but I would!--
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

To Kathleen

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Epitaph

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

To S. M.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

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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

Sonnet IV

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,--
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet II

I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnets IX

        Let you not say of me when I am old,
        In pretty worship of my withered hands
        Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
        Of such a life as mine run red and gold
        Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold,
        Here walketh passionless age!"--for there expands
        A curious superstition in these lands,
        And by its leave some weightless tales are told.

        In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
        I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;
        Impious no less in ruin than in strength,
        When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,
        Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site
        The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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