Quotes from Edna St. Vincent Millay

This summer has been so short, so small. I think that like "Alice" it ate the cake that said "Eat Me", and dwindled and dwindled until it was so tiny that it ran out through the cracks under the door.

Am I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door— Neither loud nor soft, But as long accustomed— Under Sorrow's hand?

We went too far when we put on the fur of lynxes, Of weasels trapped in winter when they've lost their tan; We went too far when we let the fox assist us To warm the hide that houses the soul of Man. The reek of the leopard and the stink of the inky cat Striped handsomely with white, are in the concert hall; We sleekly writhe from under them, and are above all that; But, the concert over, back into our pelts we crawl.

Some things are Dark Some things are dark --- or think they are. But, in comparison to me, All things are light enough to see In any place, at any hour. For I am Nightmare: where I fly, Terror and rain stand in the sky So thick, you could not tell them from That blackness out of which you come. So much for ``where I fly'': but when I strike, and clutch in claw the brain--- Erebus, to such brain, will seem The thin blue dusk of pleasant dream.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

AUTUMN CHANT Now the autumn shudders In the rose's root, Far and wide the ladders Lean among the fruit. Now the autumn clambers Up the trellised frame And the rose remembers The dust from which it came. Brighter than the blossom On the rose's bough Sits the wizened, orange, Bitter berry now; Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came.

We walk On the skin Of life.

You leave me much against my will.

Thursday - 1892-1950 And if I loved you Wednesday, Well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday— So much is true. And why you come complaining Is more than I can see. I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what Is that to me?

Oh, my country, so foolish and dear, Scornful America, crooning a tune. Think, Think: are we immune? Catch him, catch him and stop him soon!

No matter what I say, All that I really love Is the rain that flattens on the bay, And the eel-grass in the cove; The jingle-shells that lie and bleach At the tide-line, and the trace Of higher tides along the beach: Nothing in this place.

I know what my heart is like       Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool       Left there by the tide,       A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge. — Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Ebb," Collected Poems . (Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Second Addition edition March 8, 2011)

So is no warmth for me at any fire To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low; I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire, At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong, And straighten back in weariness, and long To gather up my little gods and go.

But there comes to birth no common spawn From the love of a priest for a leprechaun, And you never have seen and you never will see Such things as the things that swaddled me!

If I had loved you less or played you slyly I might have held you for a summer more

Your broad sky, Giant, Is the shelf of a cupboard. I make bean-stalks—I'm A builder like yourself; But bean-stalks is my trade— I couldn't make a shelf

I have a winter reason.

I shall forget before the flickers mate Your look that is today my east and west.

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.

They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don't think it's possible for you to miss me as much as I'm missing you right now

I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.

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

My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.