Edna St. Vincent Millay
Man has never been the same since God died.Collection: God
Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there. I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.Collection: Summer
Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. / It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.Collection: Flower
Oh, children, growing up to be Adventurers into sophistry, Forbear, forbear to be of those That read the rood to learn the rose.Collection: Education
I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.Collection: Summer
Blessed be Death, that cuts in marble What would have sunk to dust!Collection: Death
He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.Collection: Love
Longing alone is singer to the lute.Collection: Singers
There is no God. But it does not matter. Man is enough.Collection: Art
Spring TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.Collection: Spring
Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare.Collection: Math
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: Firsts