Quotes from Edna St. Vincent Millay

Learn to love blackness while there is yet time, blackness Unpatterned, blackness without horizons.

Still must the poet as of old, In barren attic bleak and cold, Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to Such things as flowers and song and you; Still as of old his being give In Beauty's name, while she may live, Beauty that may not die as long As there are flowers and you and song.

Relaxing me from head to feet Love masters me, the bitter sweet O'er thy limbs breathing; Yea, Eros now, the god born blind Sweeps my soul like the mountain wind Through the oaks seething.

Marriage...one of the most civilized institutions in the world...But...swimming is one of the most wonderful of sports, and yet there are always some people who cannot swim who insist on going into the water and getting drowned. Many people spoil marriage in a like manner. One should be sure she knows how to be married before rushing into it.

But, sure, the sky is big, I said; Miles and miles above my head; So here upon my back I'll lie And look my fill into the sky. And so I looked, and, after all, The sky was not so very tall. The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, And — sure enough! — I see the top! The sky, I thought, is not so grand; I 'most could touch it with my hand! And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

Nobody speaks to me. People fall in love with me, and annoy me and distress me and flatter me and excite me and—and all that sort of thing. But no one speaks to me. I sometimes think that no one can. Can you?

I have learned to fail. And I have had my say.

A wind with a wolf's head Howled about our door, And we burned up the chairs And sat upon the floor.

About the trees my arms I wound; Like one going mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky.

Unlike most people, I kept my mouth shut about the man I was living with.

The breath of dying lilies haunted the twilight air.

Into each dance must be packed the panic and ecstasy of her last moment of life, for underneath was death.

Feast" I drank at every vine. The last was like the first. I came upon no wine So wonderful as thirst. I gnawed at every root. I ate of every plant. I came upon no fruit So wonderful as want. Feed the grape and bean To the vintner and monger: I will lie down lean With my thirst and my hunger.

Hard, hard it is, this anxious autumn To lift the heavy mind from its dark forebodings;

into the darkness they go, the wise & the lovely

Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely. She that knew not where to hide, Is gone again like a jeweled fish from the hand, Is lost on every side. Mute,mute, I make way to the garden, Thither where she last was seen; The heavy foot of the frost is on the flags there, Where her light step has been. Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely, Gone again on every side, Lost again like a shining fish from the hand Into the shadowy tide.

And you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust.

I met the wolf alone and was devoured in peace.

Who's that knocking on my grave and will not let me sleep, a year has one

So come on out, my dear old sweet Sister, - & we'll open our oysters together.

The room is full of you! — As I came in And closed the door behind me, all at once A something in the air, intangible, yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

And so beneath the weight lay I And suffered death, but could not die.

I turn away reluctant from your light, And stand irresolute, a mind undone, A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight From having looked too long upon the sun. Then is my daily life a narrow room In which a little while, uncertainly, Surrounded by impenetrable gloom, Among familiar things grown strange to me Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark, Till I become accustomed to the dark.

Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known, What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown, And yanked both ways by my mother and my father, With a "Which would you better?" and a "Which would you rather?" With him for a sire and her for a dam, What should I be but just what I am?