Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
This is a poem in sonnet form about loss and grief. The speaker is mourning the absence through death or desertion of a lover. The tone is sad and bitter, with a undercurrent of anger against the world, as expressed in the statement ‘you all have lied’.
The choice of the sonnet is appropriate, bein...
Time 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.