Edna St. Vincent Millay Poems

There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to
believe,
...

Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows across the sea.
And I shall meet a fisherman
Out of Capri,
...

No rose that in a garden ever grew,
In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine,
Though buried under centuries of fine
Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew
...

Heap not on this mound
Roses that she loved so well:
Why bewilder her with roses,
That she cannot see or smell?
...

Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
...

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,
...

How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
...

Think not, not for a moment let your mind,
Wearied with thinking, doze upon the thought
That the work's done and the long day behind,
And beauty, since 'tis paid for, can be bought.
...

"Heaven bless the babe!" they said.
"What queer books she must have read!"
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
...

Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.
...