#vincent millay

[moonshadowsinthemoonwormlight]

“Please give me some bad advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”

Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay

[sapphisae]

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend; Well, such you are,—but well enough we know How thick about us root, how rankly grow Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend, That flourish through neglect, and soon must send Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow Our steady senses; how such matters go We are aware, and how such matters end. Yet shall be told no meagre passion here; With lovers such as we forevermore Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere Receives the Table's ruin through her door, Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear, Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.

[nostalgiaforanageyettocome]

Sonnet IV

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 vows 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.

-Millay

from A Few Figs from Thistles (1922).

[nostalgiaforanageyettocome]

Sonnet V

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.

-Millay

[nostalgiaforanageyettocome]

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.

-Millay

from Renascence and Other Poems (1917).

[valueplazahome-blog]

Rays Collection of Poems, from Edna St. Vincent Millay to Doctor Seuss.

[incontaveis]

529.

The Return "Earth can not count the sons she bore: the wounded lynx, the wounded man Come trailing blood unto her door; She shelters them as best she can"

Vincent Millay

[sapphisae]

dirge without music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay [x]

(Sometimes I get so sick of seeing that young-Vassar-poetess-among-the-tree-blossoms photograph of young Vincent, and I want everyone to remember that she died alone, a broken-down drunk. If you ever decide you don't want your heart anymore, read Nancy Milford's comprehensive 2001 biography, Savage Beauty. It becomes impossible to romanticize Vincent afterward yet oddly you will only love her that much harder. And you won't be resigned. The last three lines Millay ever wrote:

I will control myself, or go inside. I will not flaw perfection with my grief. Handsome, this day: no matter who has died.

Grateful to bettydays for reminding me this poem, improbably, exists.)