Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

* * *

What’s this of death, from you who never will
   die?
Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay,
The thumb that set the hollow just that way
In your full throat and lidded the long eye
So roundly from the forehead, will let lie
Broken, forgotten, under foot some day
Your unimpeachable body, and so slay
The work he most had been remembered by?
I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust
Goes down, whatever of ashes may return
To its essential self in its own season,
Loveliness such as yours will not be lost,
But, cast in bronze upon his very urn,
Make known him Master, and for what good
   reason.

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

Print

1595 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version