Death devours all lovely things: Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness - presently Every bed is narrow. Unremembered as old rain Dries the she… - Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Death devours all lovely things:
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness - presently
Every bed is narrow.

Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation;
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.

After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished? — Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Passer Mortuus Est,” Second April. (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921)

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About Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright and the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She was also known for her unconventional, bohemian lifestyle and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Nancy Boyd

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Additional quotes by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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.

The room is full of you! — As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick! —

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.

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