Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

* * *

Love is not blind. I see with single eye
Your ugliness and other women’s grace.
I know the imperfection of your face,--
The eyes too wide apart, the brow too high
For beauty. Learned from earliest youth am I
In loveliness, and cannot so erase
Its letters from my mind, that I may trace
You faultless, I must love until I die.
More subtle is the sovereignty of love:
So am I caught that when I say, “Not fair,”
’Tis but as if I said, “Not here--not there--
Not risen--not writing letters.” Well I know
What is this beauty men are babbling of;
I wonder only why they prize it so.

1. When You, That at This Moment
2. Sometimes When I Am Wearied
3. I See So Clearly Now My Similar Years
4. Lord Archer, Death
5. She Filled Her Arms with Wood

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