Sonnets XI

        As to some lovely temple, tenantless
        Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
        Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
        Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
        Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
        The worshiper returns, and those who pass
        Marvel him crying on a name that was,--
        So is it now with me in my distress.
        Your body was a temple to Delight;
        Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
        Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
        Here might I hope to find you day or night,
        And here I come to look for you, my love,
        Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sorrow

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Burial

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Macdougal Street

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Tavern

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 II

    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
        Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
        I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
    I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
    The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
        And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
        But last year's bitter loving must remain
    Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

    There are a hundred places where I fear
        To go,--so with his memory they brim!
    And entering with relief some quiet place
    Where never fell his foot or shone his face
    I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
        And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

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

Sonnets XII

        Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
        At length, my lord, Pieria?--put away
        For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay
        These mortal bones against my body set,
        For all the puny fever and frail sweat
        Of human love,--renounce for these, I say,
        The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray
        The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet?
        Ah, but indeed, some day shall you awake,
        Rather, from dreams of me, that at your side
        So many nights, a lover and a bride,
        But stern in my soul's chastity, have lain,
        To walk the world forever for my sake,
        And in each chamber find me gone again!

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 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