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And What Are You That, Missing You, I Should Be Kept Awake As Many Nights As There Are Days With Weeping For Your Sake? And What Are You That, Missing You, As Many Days As Crawl I Should Be Listening To The Wind And Looking At The Wall? I Know A Man That’s A Braver Man And Twenty Men As Kind, And What Are You, That You Should Be The One Man In My Mind? Yet Women’s Ways Are Witless Ways, As Any Sage Will Tell,— And What Am I, That I Should Love So Wisely And So Well?

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

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And What Are You

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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And What Are You That, Missing You, I Should Be Kept Awake As Many Nights As There Are Days With Weeping For Your Sake? And What Are You That, Missing You, As Many Days As Crawl I Should Be Listening To The Wind And Looking At The Wall? I Know A Man That’s A Braver Man And Twenty Men As Kind, And What Are You, That You Should Be The One Man In My Mind? Yet Women’s Ways Are Witless Ways, As Any Sage Will Tell,— And What Am I, That I Should Love So Wisely And So Well?

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O World, I Cannot Hold Thee Close Enough!

I, Being Born A Woman And Distressed By All The Needs And Notions Of My Kind, Am Urged By Your Propinquity To Find Your Person Fair, And Feel A Certain Zest To Bear Your Body's Weight Upon My Breast; So Subtly Is The Fume Of Life Designed, To Clarify The Pulse And Cloud The Mind, And Leave Me Once Again Undone, Possessed. Think Not For This, However, The Poor Treason Of My Stout Blood Against My Staggering Brain, I Shall Remember You With Love, Or Season My Scorn With Pity, - Let Me Make It Plain: I Find This Frenzy Insufficient Reason For Conversation When We Meet Again.

A Poem From Edna St. Vincent Millay: Grown-up Was It For This I Uttered Prayers, And Sobbed And Cursed And Kicked The Stairs, That Now, Domestic As A Plate, I Should Retire At Half-past Eight?

But If I Can't Be Sorry, Why, I Might As Well Be Glad!

Life In Itself Is Nothing, An Empty Cup, A Flight Of Uncarpeted Stairs.

If I Could Have Two Things In One: The Peace Of The Grave, And The Light Of The Sun.

There Is No Shelter In You Anywhere.

Soar, Eat Ether, See What Has Never Been Seen; Depart, Be Lost, But Climb.

A Person Who Publishes A Book Appears Willfully In Public Eye With His Pants Down.

And Must I Then, Indeed, Pain, Live With You All Through My Life?-sharing My Fire, My Bed, Sharing-oh, Worst Of All Things!-the Same Head?- And, When I Feed Myself, Feeding You Too?

The First Rose On My Rose-tree Budded, Bloomed, And Shattered, During Sad Days When To Me Nothing Mattered. Grief Or Grief Has Drained Me Clean; Still It Seems A Pity No One Saw,—it Must Have Been Very Pretty.

I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart, And Not The Full Four Seasons Of The Year; And You Must Welcome From Another Part Such Noble Moods As Are Not Mine, My Dear. No Gracious Weight Of Golden Fruits To Sell Have I, Nor Any Wise And Wintry Thing; And I Have Loved You All Too Long And Well To Carry Still The High Sweet Breast Of Spring. Wherefore I Say: O Love, As Summer Goes, I Must Be Gone, Steal Forth With Silent Drums, That You May Hail Anew The Bird And Rose When I Come Back To You, As Summer Comes. Else Will You Seek, At Some Not Distant Time, Even Your Summer In Another Clime.

I, Being Born A Woman And Distressed By All The Needs And Notions Of My Kind.

It's Not True That Life Is One Damn Thing After Another; It Is One Damn Thing Over And Over.

But You Were Something More Than Young And Sweet And Fair, - And The Long Year Remembers You.

I Would I Were Alive Again To Kiss The Fingers Of The Rain, To Drink Into My Eyes The Shine Of Every Slanting Silver Line, To Catch The Freshened, Fragrant Breeze From Drenched And Dripping Apple-trees. For Soon The Shower Will Be Done, And Then The Broad Face Of The Sun Will Laugh Above The Rain-soaked Earth Until The World With Answering Mirth Shakes Joyously, And Each Round Drop Rolls Twinkling, From Its Grass-blade Top.

Longing Alone Is Singer To The Lute.

Here's A Song Was Never Sung: Growing Old Is Dying Young.

I Dread No More The First White In My Hair, Or Even Age Itself, The Easy Shoe, The Cane, The Wrinkled Hands, The Special Chair: Time, Doing This To Me, May Alter Too My Anguish, Into Something I Can Bear

Time Can Make Soft That Iron Wood.

Safe Upon The Solid Rock The Ugly Houses Stand. Come And See My Shining Palace Built Upon The Sand!

To Be Grown Up Is To Sit At The Table With People Who Have Died, Who Neither Listen Nor Speak.

The World Stands Out On Either Side, No Wider Than The Heart Is Wide.

And All The Loveliest Things There Be Come Simply, So It Seems To Me.

I Will Be The Gladdest Thing Under The Sun! I Will Touch A Hundred Flowers And Not Pick One.

Not For The Flag Of Any Land Because Myself Was Born There Will I Give Up My Life. But I Will Love That Land Where Man Is Free, And That Will I Defend.

April Comes Like An Idiot, Babbling And Strewing Flowers.

Guess I'll Weep Awhile. Guess I Won't, I Mean.

But She Was Not Made For Any Man, And She Will Never Be All Mine.

She Is Happy Where She Lies With The Dust Upon Her Eyes.

Cruel Of Heart, Lay Down My Song. Your Reading Eyes Have Done Me Wrong. Not For You Was The Pen Bitten, And The Mind Wrung, And The Song Written.

I Make Bean Stalks, I'm A Builder, Like Yourself.

Martyred Many Times Must Be Who Would Keep His Country Free.

Sorrow Like A Ceaseless Rain Beats Upon My Heart. People Twist And Scream In Pain-- Dawn Will Find Them Still Again; This Has Neither Wax Nor Wane, Neither Stop Nor Start.

On And On Eternally Shall Your Altered Fluid Run, Bud And Bloom And Go To Seed; But Your Singing Days Are Done

She Is Neither Pink Nor Pale, And She Never Will Be All Mine; She Learned Her Hands In A Fairy-tale, And Her Mouth On A Valentine. She Has More Hair Than She Needs; In The Sun ’tis A Woe To Me! And Her Voice Is A String Of Colored Beads, Or Steps Leading Into The Sea. She Loves Me All That She Can, And Her Ways To My Ways Resign; But She Was Not Made For Any Man, And She Never Will Be All Mine.

Catch From The Board Of Beauty/ Such Careless Crumbs As Fall.

Thus In The Winter Stands The Lonely Tree, Nor Knows What Birds Have Vanished One By One, Yet Knows Its Boughs More Silent Than Before

Life Isn't All Beer And Skittles; Few Of Us Have Touched A Skittle In Years.

I Would Blossom If I Were A Rose.

This Book, When I Am Dead, Will Be A Little Faint Perfume Of Me. People Who Knew Me Well Will Say, She Really Used To Think That Way.

To What Purpose, April, Do You Return Again? Beauty Is Not Enough.

Her Lawn Looks Like A Meadow, And If She Mows The Place She Leaves The Clover Standing And The Queen Anne's Lace.

You Wrote Me A Beautiful Letter, I Wonder If You Meant It To Be As Beautiful As It Was. I Think You Did; For Somehow I Know That Your Feeling For Me, However Slight It Is, Is Of The Nature Of Love... When You Tell Me To Come, I Will Come, By The Next Train, Just As I Am. This Is Not Meekness, Be Assured; I Do Not Come Naturally By Meekness; Know That It Is A Proud Surrender To You.

Should At That Moment The Full Moon Step Forth Upon The Hill, And Memories Hard To Bear At Noon, By Moonlight Harder Still, Form In The Shadows Of The Trees, - Things That You Could Not Spare And Live, Or So You Thought, Yet These All Gone, And You Still There, A Man No Longer What He Was, Not Yet The Thing He Planned.

Stranger, Pause And Look; From The Dust Of Ages Lift This Little Book, Turn The Tattered Pages, Read Me, Do Not Let Me Die! Search The Fading Letters Finding Steadfast In The Broken Binding All That Once Was I!

Strange How Few, After Alls Said And Done, The Things That Are Of Moment.

Lord I Do Fear / Thou'st Made The World Too Beautiful This Year.

We Think-although Of Course, Now, We Very Seldom Clearly Think- That The Other Side Of War Is Peace.

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 Favorite Vow. I Would Indeed That Love Were Longer-lived, And Vows 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.

Need We Say It Was Not Love, Now That Love Is Perished?

O Troubled Forms, O Early Love Unfortunate And Hard, Time Has Estranged You Into A Jewel Cold And Pure

Under My Head Till Morning; But The Rain, Is Full Of Ghosts Tonight, That Tap And Sigh, Upon The Glass And Listen For Reply.

All My Life, Following Care Along The Dusty Road, Have I Looked Back On Loveliness And Sighed.

You See, I Am A Poet, And Not Quite Right In The Head, Darling. It’s Only That.

Ah, I Could Lay Me Down In This Long Grass And Close My Eyes, And Let The Quiet Wind Blow Over Me

Where You Used To Be, There Is A Hole In The World, Which I Find Myself Constantly Walking Around In The Daytime, And Falling In At Night. I Miss You Like Hell.

Music My Rampart, And My Only One.

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!

For The Body At Best Is A Bundle Of Aches, Longing For Rest; It Cries When It Wakes.

I Am All The Time Talking About You, And Bragging, To One Person Or Another. I Am Like The Ancient Mariner, Who Had A Tale In His Heart He Must Unfold To All. I Am Always Buttonholing Somebody And Saying, "someday You Must Meet My Mother."

The Soul Can Split The Sky In Two And Let The Face Of God Shine Through.

Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare.

Mathematical Beauty

Night Falls Fast. Today Is In The Past. Blown From The Dark Hill Hither To My Door Three Flakes, Then Four Arrive, Then Many More.

It's Little I Know What's In My Heart,what's In My Mind It's Little I Know,but There's That In Me Must Up And Start,and It's Little I Care Where My Feet Go.

Childhood Is The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.

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 The 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.

I Have Loved Badly, Loved The Great Too Soon, Withdrawn My Words Too Late; And Eaten In An Echoing Hall Alone And From A Chipped Plate The Words That I Withdrew Too Late.

If Ever I Said In Grief Or Pride, I'd Tired Of Honest Things, I Lied.

So Up I Got In Anger, And Took A Book I Had, And Put A Ribbon On My Hair To Please A Passing Lad. And, "one Thing There's No Getting By -- I've Been A Wicked Girl," Said I; But If I Can't Be Sorry, Why, I Might As Well Be Glad!

Life Must Go On; I Forget Just Why.

I Saw And Heard, And Knew At Last The How And Why Of All Things, Past, And Present, And Forevermore.

I Am Not Afraid Of Lawyers As I Used To Be. They Are Lambs In Wolves' Clothing.

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.

I Will Come Back To You, I Swear I Will; And You Will Know Me Still. I Shall Be Only A Little Taller Than When I Went.

Death Devours All Lovely Things; Lesbia With Her Sparrow Shares The Darkness--presently Every Bed Is Narrow.

My Heart Is Warm With The Friends I Make, And Better Friends I'll Not Be Knowing, Yet There Isn't A Train I Wouldn't Take, No Matter Where It's Going.

Life Is A Quest And Love A Quarrel

Inspirational Love

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.

My Candle Burns At Both Ends

But You, You Foolish Girl, You Have Gone Home To A Leaky Castle Across The Sea To Lie Awake In Linen Smelling Of Lavender, And Hear The Nightingale, And Long For Me.

Not Poppy, Nor Mandrake, Nor All The Drowsy Syrups Of The World, Shall Ever Medicine Thee To That Sweet Sleep, Which Thou Owest Yesterday.

There Isn't A Train I Wouldn't Take, No Matter Where It's Going.

Evil Alone Has Oil For Every Wheel.

Youth, Have No Pity; Leave No Farthing Here For Age To Invest In Compromise And Fear.

Blessed Be Death, That Cuts In Marble What Would Have Sunk To Dust!

Earth Does Not Understand Her Child, Who From The Loud Gregarious Town Returns, Depleted And Defiled, To The Still Woods, To Fling Him Down.

After The Feet Of Beauty Fly My Own.

Lord, I Do Fear Thou'st Made The World Too Beautiful This Year My Soul Is All But Out Of Me-let Fall No Burning Leaf; Prithee, Let No Bird Call.

Life In Itself / Is Nothing, / An Empty Cup, A Flight Of Uncarpeted Stairs. / It Is Not Enough That Yearly, Down This Hill, / April / Comes Like An Idiot, Babbling And Strewing Flowers.

The Only People I Really Hate Are Servants. They're Not Really Human Beings At All.

Although We Sometimes Did Without A Few Of Life's Necessities, We Rarely Lacked For Its Luxuries.

Beauty Is Whatever Gives Joy.

The Young Are So Old, They Are Born With Their Fingers Crossed.

It May Be Said Of Me By Harper & Brothers, That Although I Reject Their Proposals, I Welcome Their Advances.

And Reaching Up My Hand To Try, I Screamed To Feel It Touch The Sky.

Into The Darkness They Go, The Wise And The Lovely.

Life Has No Friend.

I Am Glad That I Paid So Little Attention To Good Advice; Had I Abided By It I Might Have Been Saved From Some Of My Most Valuable Mistakes.

When You Are Corn And Roses And At Rest I Shall Endure, A Dense And Sanguine Ghost To Haunt The Scene Where I Was Happiest To Bend Above The Thing I Loved The Most

The Englishman Foxtrots As He Fox-hunts, With All His Being, Through Thickets, Through Ditches, Over Hedges, Through Chiffons, Through Waiters, Over Saxophones, To The Victorious Finish; And Who Goes Home Depends On How Many The Ambulance Will Accommodate.

Life Goes On Forever Like The Gnawing Of A Mouse.

Childhood Is Not From Birth To A Certain Age And At A Certain Age. The Child Is Grown, And Puts Away Childish Things. Childhood Is The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.

I Screamed, And--lo!--infinity Came Down And Settled Over Me

Now The Autumn Shudders In The Rose's Root. Far And Wide The Ladders Lean Among The Fruit. Now The Autumn Clambers Up The Trellised Frame, And The Rose Remembers The Dust From Which It Came. Brighter Than The Blossom On The Rose's Bough Sits The Wizened Orange, Bitter Berry Now; Beauty Never Slumbers; All Is In Her Name; But The Rose Remembers The Dust From Which It Came.

The Younger Generation Forms A Country Of Its Own. It Has No Geographical Boundaries. I've Talked With Young Hungarians In Budapest, With Young Italians In Rome, With Young Frenchmen In Paris, And With Young People All Over. ... These Young People Are Going To Do Things. They Are Going To Change Things.

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.

We Are All Ruled In What We Do By Impulses; And These Impulses Are So Organized That Our Actions In General Serve For Our Self Preservation And That Of The Race.

You Are Loved. If So, What Else Matters?

Beautiful As A Dandelion-blossom Golden In The Green Grass, This Life Can Be.

Beauty In All Things-no, We Cannot Hope For That; But Some Place Set Apart For It.

I Drank At Every Vine, The Last Was Like The First. I Came Upon No Wine So Wonderful As Thirst.

Night Falls Fast. Today Is In The Past.

God, I Can Push The Grass Apart And Lay My Finger On Thy Heart.

What The Customer Demands Is Last Year's Model, Cheaper. To Find Out What The Customer Needs You Have To Understand What The Customer Is Doing As Well As He Understands It. Then You Build What He Needs And You Educate Him To The Fact That He Needs It.

I Am Not Resigned To The Shutting Away Of Loving Hearts In The Hard Ground.

When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins Are Frosty Channels To A Muted Stream, And Out Of All Our Burning There Remains No Feeblest Spark To Fire Us, Even In Dream, This Be Our Solace: That It Was Not Said When We Were Young And Warm And In Our Prime, Upon Our Couch We Lay As Lie The Dead, Sleeping Away The Unreturning Time.

Summer Set Lip To Earth's Bosom Bare, And Left The Flushed Print In A Poppy There. I Will Touch A Hundred Flowers And Not Pick One.

They Say When You Are Missing Someone That They Are Probably Feeling The Same, But I Don't Think It's Possible For You To Miss Me As Much As I'm Missing You Right Now

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!

Oh, Children, Growing Up To Be Adventurers Into Sophistry, Forbear, Forbear To Be Of Those That Read The Rood To Learn The Rose.

Oh, Friend, Forget Not, When You Fain Would Note In Me A Beauty That Was Never Mine, How First You Knew Me In A Book I Wrote, How First You Loved Me For A Written Line.

I Love Humanity But I Hate People.

Inspirational Love

A Person Who Publishes A Book Willfully Appears Before The Populace With His Pants Down. If It Is A Good Book Nothing Can Hurt Him. If It Is A Bad Book Nothing Can Help Him.

The Heart Grows Weary After A Little Of What It Loved For A Little While.

But Far, Oh, Far As Passionate Eye Can Reach, And Long, Ah, Long As Rapturous Eye Can Cling, The World Is Mine: Blue Hill, Still Silver Lake, Broad Field, Bright Flower, And The Long White Road A Gateless Garden, And An Open Path: My Feet To Follow, And My Heart To Hold.

Upon This Gifted Age, In Its Dark Hour Falls From The Sky A Meteoric Shower Of Facts; They Lie Unquestioned, Uncombined. Wisdom Enough To Leech Us Of Our Ill Is Daily Spun, But There Exists No Loom To Weave It Into Fabric.

Pity Me That The Heart Is Slow To Learn What The Swift Mind Beholds At Every Turn.

For My Omniscience Paid I Toll In Infinite Remorse Of Soul. All Sin Was Of My Sinning, All Atoning Mine, And Mine The Gall Of All Regret. Mine Was The Weight Of Every Brooded Wrong, The Hate That Stood Behind Each Envious Thrust, Mine Every Greed, Mine Every Lust. And All The While For Every Grief, Each Suffering, I Craved Relief With Individual Desire, – Craved All In Vain! And Felt Fierce Fire About A Thousand People Crawl; Perished With Each, — Then Mourned For All!

Ah, Drink Again This River That Is The Taker-away Of Pain, And The Giver-back Of Beauty! In These Cool Waves What Can Be Lost?-- Only The Sorry Cost Of The Lovely Thing, Ah, Never The Thing Itself! The Level Flood That Laves The Hot Brow And The Stiff Shoulder Is At Our Temples Now. Gone Is The Fever, But Not Into The River; Melted The Frozen Pride, But The Tranquil Tide Runs Never The Warmer For This, Never The Colder. Immerse The Dream. Drench The Kiss. Dip The Song In The Stream.

What Should I Be But Just What I Am?

I Am Not A Tentative Person. Whatever I Do, I Give Up My Whole Self To It.

When You Publish Something, It Is Very Much As If You Pulled Your Pants Down In Public. If What You Have Written Is Good, Nobody Can Hurt You; If What You Have Written Is Bad, Nobody Can Help You.

I Shall Die, But That Is All That I Shall Do For Death; I Am Not On His Pay-roll.

I Find That I Never Lose Bach. I Don't Know Why I Have Always Loved Him So. Except That He Is So Pure, So Relentless And Incorruptible, Like A Principle Of Geometry.

And He Whose Soul Is Flat -- The Sky Will Cave In On Him By And By.

Without Music I Should Wish To Die.

And What Are You That, Missing You, I Should Be Kept Awake As Many Nights As There Are Days With Weeping For Your Sake? And What Are You That, Missing You, As Many Days As Crawl I Should Be Listening To The Wind And Looking At The Wall? I Know A Man That’s A Braver Man And Twenty Men As Kind, And What Are You, That You Should Be The One Man In My Mind? Yet Women’s Ways Are Witless Ways, As Any Sage Will Tell,— And What Am I, That I Should Love So Wisely And So Well?

I Only Know That Summer Sang In Me A Little While, That In Me Sings No More.

The World Stands Out On Either Side No Wider Than The Heart Is Wide; Above The World Is Stretched The Sky, No Higher Than The Soul Is High. The Heart Can Push The Sea And Land Farther Away On Either Hand; The Soul Can Split The Sky In Two, And Let The Face Of God Shine Through. But East And West Will Pinch The Heart That Can Not Keep Them Pushed Apart; And He Whose Soul Is Flat—the Sky Will Cave In On Him By And By.

Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare. Let All Who Prate Of Beauty Hold Their Peace, And Lay Them Prone Upon The Earth And Cease To Ponder On Themselves, The While They Stare At Nothing, Intricately Drawn Nowhere.

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.

Please Give Me Some Good Advice In Your Next Letter. I Promise Not To Follow It.

I Do Not Think There Is A Woman In Whom The Roots Of Passion Shoot Deeper Than In Me.

Life Must Go On, Though Good Men Die.

One Things There's No Getting By, I've Been A Wicked Girl, Says I... But, If I Can't Be Sorry I Might As Well Be Glad !

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, Though Good Men Die; Anne, Eat Your Breakfast; Dan, Take Your Medicine; Life Must Go On; I Forget Just Why.

If I Love You Wednesday, What Is That To You? I Do Not Love You Thursday - So Much Is True.

Pour Away Despair And Rinse The Cup. Eat Happiness Like Bread.

I Hate People But I Love Gatherings.

A Ghost In Marble Of A Girl You Knew Who Would Have Loved You In A Day Or Two.

After All My Erstwhile Dear, My No Longer Cherished; Need We Say It Was Not Love, Just Because It Perished?

Spring To What Purpose, April, Do You Return Again? Beauty Is Not Enough. You Can No Longer Quiet Me With The Redness Of Little Leaves Opening Stickily. I Know What I Know. The Sun Is Hot On My Neck As I Observe The Spikes Of The Crocus. The Smell Of The Earth Is Good. It Is Apparent That There Is No Death. But What Does That Signify? Not Only Under Ground Are The Brains Of Men Eaten By Maggots. Life In Itself Is Nothing, An Empty Cup, A Flight Of Uncarpeted Stairs. It Is Not Enough That Yearly, Down This Hill, April Comes Like An Idiot, Babbling And Strewing Flowers.

What Terrible Fear Causes Man To Address The Void As Thou?

When I Can Make Of Ten Small Words A Rope To Hang The World! "i Had You And I Have You Now No More.

There Is No God. But It Does Not Matter. Man Is Enough.

She Learned Her Hands In A Fairy-tale, And Her Mouth On A Valentine.

I Am Waylaid By Beauty.

Dust In An Urn Long Since, Dispersed And Dead Is Great Apollo; And The Happier He

How Strange A Thing Is Death, Bringing To His Knees, Bringing To His Antlers The Buck In The Snow . . . Life, Looking Out Attentive From The Eyes Of The Doe.

A Grave Is Such A Quiet Place.

Beauty Never Slumbers; All Is In Her Name; But The Rose Remembers The Dust From Which It Came.

I Had A Little Sorrow, Born Of A Little Sin.

I Am Not At All In Favor Of Hard Work For Its Own Sake; Many People Who Work Very Hard Indeed Produce Terrible Things, And Should Most Certainly Not Be Encouraged.

The Longest Absence Is Less Perilous To Love Than The Terrible Trials Of Incessant Proximity.

And Her Voice Is A String Of Colored Beads, Or Steps Leading Into The Sea.

Not Truth, But Faith It Is That Keeps The World Alive.

Marriage...one Of The Most Civilized Institutions In The World...but...swimming Is One Of The Most Wonderful Of Sports, And Yet There Are Always Some People Who Cannot Swim Who Insist On Going Into The Water And Getting Drowned. Many People Spoil Marriage In A Like Manner. One Should Be Sure She Knows How To Be Married Before Rushing Into It.

This Have I Known Always: Love Is No More Than The Wide Blossom Which The Wind Assails, Than The Great Tide That Treads The Shifting Shore, Strewing Fresh Wreckage Gathered In The Gales; Pity Me That The Heart Is Slow To Learn, That The Swift Mind Beholds At Every Turn.

Please Don't Think Me Negligent Or Rude. I Am Both, In Effect, Of Course, But Please Don't Think Me Either.

It's Not Love's Going Hurts My Days But That It Went In Little Ways.

Parrots, Tortoises And Redwoods Live A Longer Life Than Men Do; Men A Longer Life Than Dogs Do; Dogs A Longer Life Than Love Does.

Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare. Let All Who Prate Of Beauty Hold Their Peace, And Lay Them Prone Upon The Earth And Cease To Ponder On Themselves, The While They Stare At Nothing, Intricately Drawn Nowhere In Shapes Of Shifting Lineage; Let Geese Gabble And Hiss, But Heroes Seek Release From Dusty Bondage Into Luminous Air. O Blinding Hour, O Holy, Terrible Day, When First The Shaft Into His Vision Shone Of Light Anatomized! Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare. Fortunate They Who, Though Once Only And Then But Far Away, Have Heard Her Massive Sandal Set On Stone.

That Which Has Quelled Me, Lives With Me, Accomplice In Catastrophe.

[on Going To Sunday School:] It Looks Like Rain, And I Hope It Will Rain Cats And Dogs And Hammers And Pitchforks And Silver Sugar Spoons And Hay Ricks And Paper-covered Novels And Picture Frames And Rag Carpets And Toothpicks And Skating Rinks And Birds Of Paradise And Roof Gardens And Burdocks And French Grammars Before Sunday School Time.

That Is My Being, The Madness Of An Unaccustomed Mood.

Let Geese Gabble And Hiss, But Heroes Seek Release From Dusty Bondage Into Luminous Air.

Heap Not On This Mound Roses That She Loved So Well; Why Bewilder Her With Roses That She Cannot See Or Smell.

No One But Night, With Tears On Her Dark Face, Watches Beside Me In This Windy Place.

Man Has Never Been The Same Since God Died.

Love Is Not All; It Is Not Meat Nor Drink.

To A Young Poet Time Cannot Break The Bird's Wing From The Bird. Bird And Wing Together Go Down, One Feather. No Thing That Ever Flew, Not The Lark, Not You, Can Die As Others Do.

Sweet Love, Sweet Thorn, When Lightly To My Heart. I Took Your Thrust, Whereby I Since Am Slain, And I Lie Disheveled In The Grass Apart, A Sodden Thing Bedrenched By Tears And Rain.

Ah! Up Then From The Ground Sprang I And 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.

L 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.

The Fabric Of My Faithful Love No Power Shall Dim Or Ravel Whilst I Stay Here - But Oh, My Dear, If I Should Ever Travel!

We Were So Wholly One I Had Not Thought That We Could Die Apart. I Had Not Thought That I Could Move,—and You Be Stiff And Still! That I Could Speak,—and You Perforce Be Dumb! I Think Our Heart-strings Were, Like Warp And Woof In Some Firm Fabric, Woven In And Out; Your Golden Filaments In Fair Design Across My Duller Fibre.

Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare. Fortunate They Who, Though Once Only And Then But Far Away, Have Heard Her Massive Sandal Set On Stone.

Oh, You Mean I'm A Homosexual! Of Course I Am, And Heterosexual Too, But What's That Got To Do With My Headache?

Progress-progress Is The Dirtiest Word In The Language-who Ever Told Us- And Made Us Believe It-that To Take A Step Forward Was Necessarily, Was Always A Good Idea?

I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart, And Not The Full Four Seasons Of The Year.

Life Isn't One Thing After Another, It's The Same Thing Over And Over.

One Thing After Another

He That Would Eat Of Love Must Eat It Where It Hangs.

Father, I Beg Of Thee A Little Task To Dignify My Days, 'tis All I Ask.

Curse Thee, Life, I Will Live With Thee No More! Thou Hast Mocked Me, Starved Me, Beat My Body Sore! And All For A Pledge That Was Not Pledged By Me, I Have Kissed Thy Crust And Eaten Sparingly That I Might Eat Again, And Met Thy Sneers With Deprecations, And Thy Blows With Tears.

... But The Rain Is Full Of Ghosts Tonight

Cut If You Will With Sleep's Dull Knife, The Years From Off Your Life, My Friend! The Years That Death Takes Off My Life, He'll Take From Off The Other End!

I Know, But I Do Not Approve. And I Am Not Resigned.

Tiresome Heart, Forever Living And Dying, House Without Air, I Leave You And Lock Your Door. Wild Swans, Come Over The Town, Come Over The Town Again, Trailing Your Legs And Crying!

Beautiful As A Dandelion-blossom, Golden In The Green Grass, This Life Can Be. Common As A Dandelion-blossom, Beautiful In The Clean Grass, Not Beautiful Because Common, Beautiful Because Beautiful, Noble Because Common, Because Free.

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William Dean Howells

Stokely Carmichael

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