Edna St. Vincent Millay
A grave is such a quiet place.Collection: Quiet
Let us not forget such words, and all they mean, as hatred, bitterness, and rancor greed, intolerance, bigotry; let us renew our faith and pledge to man, his right to be himself and free.Collection: Hate
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine.Collection: Valentine
Life has no friend.Collection: Life
No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, watches beside me in this windy place.Collection: Stars
I have loved badly, loved the great Too soon, withdrawn my words too late; And eaten in an echoing hall Alone and from a chipped plate The words that I withdrew too late.Collection: Regret
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go,--so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!Collection: Pain
For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire, – Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl; Perished with each, — then mourned for all!Collection: Regret
And what are you that, missing you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake? And what are you that, missing you, As many days as crawl I should be listening to the wind And looking at the wall? I know a man that’s a braver man And twenty men as kind, And what are you, that you should be The one man in my mind? Yet women’s ways are witless ways, As any sage will tell,— And what am I, that I should love So wisely and so well?Collection: Wall
My candle burns at both endsCollection: Ends
When you publish something, it is very much as if you pulled your pants down in public. If what you have written is good, nobody can hurt you; if what you have written is bad, nobody can help you.Collection: Hurt
After the feet of beauty fly my own.Collection: Feet
I had a little sorrow, Born of a little sin.Collection: Sorrow
Father, I beg of Thee a little task To dignify my days, 'tis all I ask.Collection: Father
l 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.Collection: Wise
Life isn't all beer and skittles; few of us have touched a skittle in years.Collection: Beer
Although we sometimes did without a few of life's necessities, we rarely lacked for its luxuries.Collection: Luxury
If I love you Wednesday, What is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.Collection: Love
I hate people but I love gatherings.Collection: Hate
I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.Collection: Work
The Englishman foxtrots as he fox-hunts, with all his being, through thickets, through ditches, over hedges, through chiffons, through waiters, over saxophones, to the victorious finish; and who goes home depends on how many the ambulance will accommodate.Collection: Home
When you are corn and roses and at rest I shall endure, a dense and sanguine ghost To haunt the scene where I was happiest To bend above the thing I loved the mostCollection: Rose
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere.Collection: Peace
Night falls fast. Today is in the past. Blown from the dark hill hither to my door Three flakes, then four Arrive, then many more.Collection: Fall
This have I known always: Love is no more than the wide blossom which the wind assails, than the great tide that treads the shifting shore, strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales; Pity me that the heart is slow to learn, that the swift mind beholds at every turn.Collection: Sad
I find that I never lose Bach. I don't know why I have always loved him so. Except that he is so pure, so relentless and incorruptible, like a principle of geometry.Collection: Music
I know, but I do not approve. And I am not resigned.Collection: Resigned
So up I got in anger, And took a book I had, And put a ribbon on my hair To please a passing lad. And, "One thing there's no getting by -- I've been a wicked girl," said I; But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Moving
After all my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished; Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?Collection: Heartbreak
That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.Collection: Catastrophe
Her lawn looks like a meadow, And if she mows the place She leaves the clover standing And the Queen Anne's Lace.Collection: Queens
[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time.Collection: Dog
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.Collection: Children
She is happy where she lies With the dust upon her eyes.Collection: Lying
That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.Collection: Madness
One things there's no getting by, I've been a wicked girl, Says I... But, if I can't be sorry I might as well be glad !Collection: Girl
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky Will cave in on him by and by.Collection: Sky
it may be said of me by Harper & Brothers, that although I reject their proposals, I welcome their advances.Collection: Brother
... but the rain Is full of ghosts tonightCollection: Rain
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.Collection: Wings
I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with your loveliest lie I will protest you with my favorite vow. I would indeed that love were longer-lived, And vows were not so brittle as they are, But so it is, and nature has contrived To struggle on without a break thus far,-- Whether or not we find what we are seeking Is idle, biologically speaking.Collection: Lying
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.Collection: Children
I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went.Collection: Littles
I drank at every vine, the last was like the first. I came upon no wine so wonderful as thirst.Collection: Wine