Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year."

"After all, my erstwhile dear,My no longer cherished,Need we say it was not love,Just because it perished?"

"And all at once the heavy night Fell from my eyes and I could see, --A drenched and dripping apple-tree,A last long line of silver rain,A sky grown clear and blue again. And as I looked a quickening gust Of wind blew up to me and thrust Into my face a miracle Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --I know not how such things can be! --I breathed my soul back into me. Ah! Up then from the ground sprang IAnd hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound;Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;I raised my quivering arms on high;I laughed and laughed into the sky"

"The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty."

"“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.”"

"“No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, watches beside me in this windy place.”"

"“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”"

"“Dirge Without Music I 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. Crowned With 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 curled Is 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 grave Gently 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.”"

"“Love is Not All Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.”"

"“After all, my erstwhile dear,My no longer cherished,Need we say it was not love,Just because it perished?”"

"“Time Does Not Bring Relief 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.”"

"“My candle burns at both ends;It will not last the night;But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light!”"

"Beauty is whatever gives joy."

"God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart."

"The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through."

"Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it."

"A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down."

"April Comes like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers."

"And if I loved you Wednesday well what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true."

"Tis not love's going hurts my days but that it went in little ways."