Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet (Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now)

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.

1. The Snow Storm
2. When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins
3. Intention to Escape from Him
4. To S. M.
5. Scrub

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