The Dream

Illustration: Where Have All Your Dreams Gone by Joel Robison

The Dream

LOVE, if I weep it will not matter,

And if you laugh I shall not care;

Foolish am I to think about it,

But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, --

White and awful the moonlight reached

Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,

There was a shutter loose, -- it screeched!

Swung in the wind, -- and no wind blowing! --

I was afraid, and turned to you,

Put out my hand to you for comfort, --

And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!

Love, if you laugh I shall not care,

But if I weep it will not matter, --

Ah, it is good to feel you there!

Ashes of Life

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;

Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!

But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!

Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;

This or that or what you will is all the same to me;

But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --

There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow

There's this little street and this little house.




Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Sonnet VII

VII


When I too long have looked upon your face,

Wherein for me a brightness unobscured

Save by the mists of brightness has its place,

And terrible beauty not to be endured,

I turn away reluctant from your light,

And stand irresolute, a mind undone,

A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight

From having looked too long upon the sun.

Then is my daily life a narrow room

In which a little while, uncertainly,

Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,

Among familiar things grown strange to me

Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,

Till I become accustomed to the dark.

                                        Edna St. Vincent Millay

What Lips My Lips have Kissed

Please don't let this be me:

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more. Edna St. Vincent Millay

Only until this cigarette is ended

Only until this cigarette is ended...

ONLY until this cigarette is ended

A little moment at the end of all,

While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,

And in the firelight to a lance extended,

Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,

The broken shadow dances on the wall,

I will permit my memory to recall

The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.

And then adieu, -- farewell! -- the dream is done.

Yours is a face of which I can forget

The colour and the features, every one,

The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;

But in your day this moment is the sun

Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ebb

I KNOW what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall forget you presently, my dear

I shall forget you presently, my dear
I SHALL forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favourite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, --
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

Song of a Second April

APRIL this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
From orchards near and far away
The gray wood-pecker taps and bores,
And men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep;
Noisy and swift the small brooks run.
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun
Pensively; only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Lament

LISTEN, children,

Your father is dead.

From his old coats

I'll make you little jackets;

I'll make you little trousers

From his old pants.

There'll be in his pockets

Things he used to put there:

Keys and pennies

Covered with tobacco.

Dan shall have the pennies

To save in his bank;


Anne shall have the keys

To make a pretty noise with.

Life must go on

And the dead be forgotten;

Life must go on

Though good men die.

Anne, eat your breakfast;

Dan, take your medicine.

Life must go on;

I forget just why.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Image: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00675/orphans1_675357c.jpg : REUTERS

Once More Into My Arid Days

(Arid means dry; without rain)

ONCE more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
A treacherous messenger--the thought of you
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
Long since to be but just one other mound
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
And once again, and wiser is no wise,
I chase your colored phantom on the air,
And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise
And stumble pitifully on to where,
Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,
Once more [I reach for you]--and there is nothing there.

Edna St. Vincent Millay