Quotes from Edna St. Vincent Millay

SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun 'tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.

Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?

That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.

Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea

We were so wholly one I had not thought That we could die apart. I had not thought That I could move,—and you be stiff and still! That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb! I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof In some firm fabric, woven in and out; Your golden filaments in fair design Across my duller fibre.

To a Young Poet Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird. Bird and wing together Go down, one feather. No thing that ever flew, Not the lark, not you, Can die as others do.

To Those Without Pity Cruel of heart, lay down my song. Your reading eyes have done me wrong. Not for you was the pen bitten, And the mind wrung, and the song written.

Second Fig Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.

The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.

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.

The undercurrent of my every thought: To seek you, find you, have you for my own.

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.

Strange how few, After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment. Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more." There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth That can for long keep footing under that When its slack syllables tighten to a thought? Here, let me write it down! I wish to see Just how a thing like that will look on paper! "I had you and I have you now no more.

And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.

Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom, golden in the green grass, This life can be. Common as a dandelion-blossom, beautiful in the clean grass, not beautiful Because common, beautiful because beautiful, Noble because common, because free.

but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply...

A ghost in marble of a girl you knew Who would have loved you in a day or two.

And he whose soul is flat -- the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down!

but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky...

I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind...

Ah, I could lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me