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

“Dirge Without MusicI 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. CrownedWith lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curledIs the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.Down, down, down into the darkness of the graveGently 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.”

“And what are you that, missing you,I should be kept awakeAs many nights as there are daysWith weeping for your sake?And what are you that, missing you,As many days as crawlI should be listening to the windAnd looking at the wall?I know a man that’s a braver manAnd twenty men as kind,And what are you, that you should beThe one man in my mind?Yet women’s ways are witless ways,As any sage will tell,—And what am I, that I should loveSo wisely and so well?”

“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)”

“A ghost in marble of a girl you knewWho would have loved you in a day or two.”

“How first you knew me in a book I wrote,How first you loved me for a written line”

“EbbI know what my heart is likeSince your love died:It is like a hollow ledgeHolding a little poolLeft there by the tide,A little tepid pool,Drying inward from the edge.”