“And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with youall 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?”

“Be to her, Persephone,All the things I might not be;Take her head upon your knee.She that was so proud and wild,Flippant, arrogant and free,She that had no need of me,Is a little lonely childLost in Hell,—Persephone,Take her head upon your knee;Say to her, “My dear, my dear,It is not so dreadful here.”

“And all at once the heavy nightFell from my eyes and I could see, --A drenched and dripping apple-tree,A last long line of silver rain,A sky grown clear and blue again.And as I looked a quickening gustOf wind blew up to me and thrustInto my face a miracleOf orchard-breath, and with the smell, --I know not how such things can be! --I breathed my soul back into me.Ah! Up then from the ground sprang IAnd hailed the earth with such a cryAs is not heard save from a manWho has been dead, and lives again.About the trees my arms I wound;Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;I raised my quivering arms on high;I laughed and laughed into the sky”

“Time Does Not Bring ReliefTime 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.”

“My candle burns at both ends;It will not last the night;But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light!”

“I shall forget you presently, my dear (Sonnet IV) "I shall forget you presently, my dear,So make the most of this, your little day,Your little month, your little half a yearEre I forget, or die, or move away,And we are done forever; by and byI shall forget you, as I said, but now,If you entreat me with your loveliest lieI 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 contrivedTo struggle on without a break thus far,—Whether or not we find what we are seekingIs idle, biologically speaking.— Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library, 2001)”

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