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I1.
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
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And drag me at your chariot till I die, --
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Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts! --
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Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
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Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
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Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,
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Who still am free, unto no querulous care
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A fool, and in no temple worshiper!
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I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,
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Lifted my face into its puny rain,
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Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
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As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
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(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
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Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!) II2.
I think I should have loved you presently,
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And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
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And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
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And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
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And all my pretty follies flung aside
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That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
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Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
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Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
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I, that had been to you, had you remained,
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But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
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Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
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And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
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A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
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Who would have loved you in a day or two. III3.
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
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Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
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Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
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After the feet of beauty fly my own.
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Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
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And water ever to my wildest thirst,
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I would desert you -- think not but I would! --
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And seek another as I sought you first.
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But you are mobile as the veering air,
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And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
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Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
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I have but to continue at your side.
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So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
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I am most faithless when I most am true. IV4.
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
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So make the most of this, your little day,
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Your little month, your little half a year,
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Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
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And we are done forever; by and by
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I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
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If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
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I will protest you with my favorite vow.
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I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
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And vows were not so brittle as they are,
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But so it is, and nature has contrived
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To struggle on without a break thus far, --
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Whether or not we find what we are seeking
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Is idle, biologically speaking.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read poems about / on: food, memory, girl, pride, nature, hair, rain, water, beauty, dream, fire, pain, alone, light
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Edna St. Vincent Millay
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