Millay

I love Edna St. Vincent Millay; she speaks to me, and I feel like we can relate. I particularly adore her sonnets -- the language is stunning. Sometimes, I just feel like I can't get enough of her. This is one of those times; maybe because of the place I'm in, maybe because I need her purity of thought, maybe I want to be fed by her language, by the words she chose, by the rhythm and music of her verse. Or maybe it's because she's familiar, comfortable, easy. Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoy.

Sonnet 115

Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,

When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, 

Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;

And that I knew, though not the day and hour.

Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,

To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:

Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,

I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."

I only hoped, with the mild hope of all

Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,

A fairer summer and a later fall

Than in these parts a man is apt to see,

And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:

I tell you this across the blackened vine.

Sonnet 116

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;

In my own way, and with my full consent.

Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely

Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping

I will confess; but that's permitted me;

Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping

Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.

If I had loved you less or played you slyly

I might have held you for a summer more,

But at the cost of words I value highly,

And no such summer as the one before.

Should I outlive this anguish --and men do--

I shall have only good to say of you.