Edna St. Vincent Millay
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.Collection: Sports
I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.Collection: Passion
We think-although of course, now, we very seldom Clearly think- That the other side of War is Peace.Collection: War
The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky, No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by.Collection: Heart
All my life, Following Care along the dusty road, Have I looked back on loveliness and sighed.Collection: Compassion
Cut if you will with sleep's dull knife, the years from off your life, my friend! the years that death takes off my life, he'll take from off the other end!Collection: Sleep
If I could have two things in one: the peace of the grave, and the light of the sun.Collection: Light
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!Collection: Rocks
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.Collection: Beautiful
I saw and heard, and knew at last The How and Why of all things, past, and present, and forevermore.Collection: Past
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour falls from the sky a meteoric shower of facts; They lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill is daily spun, But there exists no loom to weave it into fabric.Collection: Educational
Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.Collection: Life
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain-- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start.Collection: Pain
Lord I do fear / Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.Collection: Beautiful
Youth, have no pity; leave no farthing here For age to invest in compromise and fear.Collection: Age
Not poppy, nor mandrake, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep, Which thou owest yesterday.Collection: Sweet
Heap not on this mound roses that she loved so well; why bewilder her with roses that she cannot see or smell.Collection: Flower
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink.Collection: Love
The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.Collection: Country
The world stands out on either side, No wider than the heart is wide.Collection: Heart
Without music I should wish to die.Collection: Music
The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief or grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.Collection: Grief
Beauty in all things-no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.Collection: Beauty
There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going.Collection: Matter
What terrible fear causes Man to address the Void as Thou?Collection: Men
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: Memories
Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me, I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly That I might eat again, and met thy sneers With deprecations, and thy blows with tears.Collection: Sad
And reaching up my hand to try, I screamed to feel it touch the sky.Collection: Reaching Up
Ah, drink again This river that is the taker-away of pain, And the giver-back of beauty! In these cool waves What can be lost?-- Only the sorry cost Of the lovely thing, ah, never the thing itself! The level flood that laves The hot brow And the stiff shoulder Is at our temples now. Gone is the fever, But not into the river; Melted the frozen pride, But the tranquil tide Runs never the warmer for this, Never the colder. Immerse the dream. Drench the kiss. Dip the song in the stream.Collection: Running
Please don't think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don't think me either.Collection: Thinking
Should at that moment the full moon Step forth upon the hill, And memories hard to bear at noon, By moonlight harder still, Form in the shadows of the trees, - Things that you could not spare And live, or so you thought, yet these All gone, and you still there, A man no longer what he was, Not yet the thing he planned.Collection: Memories
Not for the flag Of any land because myself was born there Will I give up my life. But I will love that land where man is free, And that will I defend.Collection: Giving Up
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.Collection: Song
Life must go on, Though good men die.Collection: Death
Here's a song was never sung: Growing old is dying young.Collection: Song
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.Collection: Heart
Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I'll make you little jackets; I'll make you little trousers From his old pants. There'll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the keys To make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, Though good men die; Anne, eat your breakfast; Dan, take your medicine; Life must go on; I forget just why.Collection: Children
I would blossom if I were a rose.Collection: Rose
You wrote me a beautiful letter, I wonder if you meant it to be as beautiful as it was. I think you did; for somehow I know that your feeling for me, however slight it is, is of the nature of love... When you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to You.Collection: Love
I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind.Collection: Needs
Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note In me a beauty that was never mine, How first you knew me in a book I wrote, How first you loved me for a written line.Collection: Book
I dread no more the first white in my hair, Or even age itself, the easy shoe, The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair: Time, doing this to me, may alter too My anguish, into something I can bearCollection: Hair
Not Truth, but Faith it is that keeps the world alive.Collection: Inspirational
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 nowCollection: Love
There is no shelter in you anywhere.Collection: Shelter
I am not a tentative person. Whatever I do, I give up my whole self to it.Collection: Giving Up
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew Who would have loved you in a day or two.Collection: Girl