Edna St. Vincent Millay

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.




Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I am 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.




SCRUB

If I grow bitterly,
Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth;
If I make of my drawn boughs
An Inshospitable House,
Out of which I nevery pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind to strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It is that I fear the rain
Lest it blister me again.




BEING YOUNG AND GREEN

Being Young and Green, I said in love's despite:
Never in the world will I to living wight
Give over, air my mind
To anyone,
Hang out its ancient secrets in the strong wind
To be shredded and faded ~ ~ ~ ~

Oh, me, invaded
And sacked by the wind and the sun!




MIST IN THE VALlEY

These hills, to hurt me more,
That am hurt already enough, ~ ~
Having left the sea behind,
Having turned suddenly and left the shore
That I had loved beyond all words, even a song's words, to
convey,

And built me a house on upland acres,
Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long before the winter's done,
But smelling never of bayberry hot in the sun,
Nor ever loud with the pounding of the long white breakers, ~ ~

These hills, beneath the October moon,
Sit in the valley white with mist
Like islands in a quiet bay,

Jut out from shore into the mist,
Wooded with poplar dark as pine,
Like points of land into a quiet bay.

(Just in the way
The harbour met the bay)

Stricken too sore for tears,
I stand, remembering the Islands and the sea's lost sound ~ ~
Life at its best no longer than the sand-peep's cry,
And I two years, two years,
Tilling an upland ground!




THE PLAID DRESS

Strong sun, that bleach
The curains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear? ~ ~
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid Treacheries; the flashy green of kind deed done
Through indolence, high judgments given in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown ~ ~ ~ it is not seen,
But it is there.




"Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!"

I know I might have lived in such a way
As to have suffered only pain:
Loving not man nor dog;
Not money, even; feeling
Toothache perhaps, but never more than an hour away
From skill and novocaine;
Making no contacts, dealing with life through Agents, drinking
one cocktail, betting two dollars, wearing raincoats in the
rain.
Betrayed at length by no one but the fog
Whispering to the wing of the plane.

"Fountain," I have cried to that unbubbling well, "I will not
drink of thy water!" Yet I thirst
For a mouthful of ~ ~ not to swallow, only to rinse my mouth in
~ ~ peace.
And while the eyes of the past condemn,
The eyes of the present narrow into assignation. And ~ ~ ~
worst ~ ~ ~
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed;
I shall get no help from them.






THE RETURN FROM TOWN

As I sat down by Saddle Stream
To bathe my dusty feet there,
A boy was standing on the bridge
Any girl would meet there.

As I went over Woody Knob
A youth was coming up the hill
Any maid would follow.

Then in I turned at my own gate, ~
And nothing to be sad for ~ ~
To such a man as any WIFE
Would pass a pretty lad for.




THE CURSE

Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows across the sea.
And I shall meet a fisherman
Out of Capri,

And he will say, seeing me,
�What a Strange Thing!
Like a fish�s scale or a
Butterfly�s wing.�

Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows away the fog.
And I shall meet a farmer boy
Leaping through the bog,

And he will say, seeing me,
�What a Strange Thing!
Like a peat-ash or a
Butterfly�s wing.�

And I shall blow to YOUR house
And, sucked against the pane,
See you take your sewing up
And lay it down again.

And you will say, seeing me,
�What a strange thing!
Like a plum petal or a
Butterfly�s wing.�

And none at all will know me
That knew me well before.
But I will settle at the root
That climbs about your door,

And fishermen and farmers
May see me and forget,
But I�ll be a bitter berry
In your brewing yet.

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