Edna St. Vincent Millay citations

Page 2

“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.”

“This book, when I am dead, will be
A little faint perfume of me.
People who knew me well will say,
She really used to think that way.”

“Music, my rampart and my only one.”

“She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.”

“Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!”

“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.”

“You are loved. If so, what else matters?”

“Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it. (in a letter written while she was in college)”

“There is no God.
But it does not matter.
Man is enough.”

“Life must go on; I forget just why.”

“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!”

“I would blossom if I were a rose.”

“I know, but I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

“But you, you foolish girl, you have gone home to a leaky castle across the sea to lie awake in linen smelling of lavender, and hear the nightingale, and long for me.”

“Night falls fast. Today is in the past.”

“A Poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Grown-up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?”

“That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.”

“Guess I'll weep awhile. Guess I won't, I mean.”

“And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you
all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed,
Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?-
And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?”

“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand;
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

“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.”

“I shall think of you
Whenever I am most happy, whenever I am Most sad, whenever I see a beautiful thing.
You are a burning lamp to me, a flame
The wind cannot blow out, and I shall hold you High in my hand against whatever darkness.”

“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.”

“I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.”

“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.
Nobody that matters, that is.”

“The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.”

“I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind…”