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Collected sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay
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From the Book
Tho art not lovelier than lilacs, -no
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring
Not in this chamber only at my birth
If I should learn, in some quite casual way
This door you might not open, and you did
I do but ask that you be always fair
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts
I think I should have loved you presently
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
I shall forget you presently, my dear
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend
Into the golden vessel of great song
Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
Only until this cigarette is ended
Once more into my arid days like dew
No rose that in a garden ever grew
When I too long have looked upon your face
And you as well must die, beloved dust
Let you not say of me when I am old
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Cherish you then the hope I shall forget.
When you, that at this moment are to me
That love at length should find me out and bring
Love is not blind. I see with single eye
I know I am but summer to your heart
I pray you if you love me, bear my joy
Pity me not because the light of day
Sometimes when I am wearied suddenly
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Here is a wound that never will heal, I know
I shall go back again to the bleak shore
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
What's this of death, from you who never will die?
I see so clearly now my similar years
Your face is like a chamber where a king
The light comes back with Columbine; she brings
Lord Archer, death, whom sent you in your stead?
Loving you less than life, a little less
I, being born a woman and distressed
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
Still will I harvest beauty where it grows
How healthily their feet upon the floor
Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.
So she came back into his house again
The last white sawdust on the floor was grown
She filled her arms with wood, and set her chin
The white bark writhed and sputtered like a fish
A wagon stopped before the house; she heard
Then cautiously she pushed the cellar door
One way there was of muting in the mind
She let them leave their jellies at the door
Not over-kind nor over-quick in study
She had forgotten how the August night
It came into her mind, seeing how the snow
Tenderly, in those times, as though she fed
From the wan dream that was her waking day
She had a horror he would die at night
There was upon the sill a pencil mark
The doctor asked her what she wanted done
Gazing upon him now, severe and dead.
Life, were thy pains as are the pains of hell
Grow not too high, grow not too far from home
Not that it matters, not that my heart's cry
Country of hunchbacks! -where the stong, straing spine
Upon this marble bust that is not I
For this your mother sweated in the cold
Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
What thing is this that, built of salt and lime
This beast that rends me in the sight of all
No lack of counsel from the shrewd and wise
Nay, learned doctor, these fine leeches fresh
Of all that ever in extreme disease
Since I cannot persuade you from this mood
Night is my sister, and how deep in love
Yet in an hour to come, disdainful dust
When you are dead, and your disturbing eyes
Strange thing that I, by nature nothing prone
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Olympian gods, mark now my bedside lamp
I said, seeing how the winter gale increased
Since of no creature living the last breath
My worship from this hour the Sparrow-Drawn
i dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields
Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
Shall I be prisoner till my pulses stop
My most distinguished guest and learned friend
Think not, nor for a moment let your mind
Gone in good sooth you are: not even in dream
Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane
I know the face of falsehood and her tongue
Whereas at morning in a jeweled crown.
Peril upon the paths of this desire
Women have loved before as I love now
Moon, that against the lintel of the west
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Heart, have no pity on this house of bone
Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink
When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust
Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
Sorrowful dreams remembered after waking
Most wicked words, forbear to speak them out
Clearly my ruined garden as it stood
Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Believe, if eer the bridges of this town
You say: "Since life is cruel enough at best"
Love me no more, now let the god depart
You loved me not at all, but let it go
I said in the beginning, did I not?
O ailing love, compose your struggling wing!
Summer, be seen no more within this wood
If to be left were to be left alone
I know my mind and I have made my choice
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly
Now by the path I climbed, I journey back
There is a well into whose bottomless eye
The heart once broken is a heart no more
If in the years to come you should recall
Oh, sleep forever in the Latmian cave
As men have loved their lovers in time past
Where can the heart be hidden in the ground
Time, that renews the tisues of this frame.
I too beneath your moon, almighty sex
Now from a stout and more imperious day
When did I ever deny, though this was fleeting
Thou famished grave, I will not fill thee yet
Now that the west is washed of clouds and clear
Oh, she was beautiful in every part!
Enormous moon, that rise behind these hills
Be sure my coming was a sharp offense
Now let the mouth of wailing for a time
Not only love plus awful grief
If there were balm in Gilead, I would go
Count them unclean, these tears taht turn no mill
See how these masses mill and swarm
His stalk the dark delpinium
No further from me than my hand
Upon this age, that never speaks its mind
My earnestness, which might at first offend
I must not die of pity; I must live
How innocent of me and my dark pain.
Before this cooling planet shall be cold
When death was young and bleaching bones were few
Cretaceous bird, your giant claw no lime
O earth, unhappy planet born to die
When man is gone and only gods remain
See wehre Capella with her golden kids
He heard the coughing tiger in the night
Observe how Miyanoshita cracked in two
He woke in terror to a sky more bright
The broken dike, the levee washed away
Sweeter was loss than silver coins to spend
Now forth to meadow as the farmer goes
His heatless room the watcher of the stars
Him not the golden fang of furious heaven
Now sets his foot upon the eastern sill
Alas for man, so stealthily betrayed
Only the diamond and the diamond's dust
Here lies, and none to mourn him but the sea.
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ISBN
9780060910914
006055102
9780060551025
006055102
9780060551025
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