On the recommendation of Bill Brown in a comment on my blog, I have been exploring a poet that is very little known to me, Edna St. Vincent Millay. I thought I would share one of my favorites so far with you guys and tell you what I like about it. And Bill, if you have any particular recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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 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 really identify with this poem, especially lately. I've made some new and very young friends (I'm looking at you, Shea, Alyssa, Rory, and Miranda) in the last several months, and while they are rocking awesome, they make me remember my age.
I'm really not that old, only 31, but when I see them being all 20 and 21, I can see, in a way I usually don't, how much I have changed in that 10 years. I see myself more content and stable and rational and fulfilled, but I feel a loss of wildness and spontaneity and violent emotions. To be completely truthful, I sometimes miss the drama and the upheaval, the new loves and the sowing of oats.
This sonnet really captures my sense that the old days have left a permanent impression on me, but that the details have faded a little. I remember my teens and twenties as a feeling and a mood, rather than a series of events. The image of "ghosts . . . that tap and sigh upon the glass" is just how I remember the past - insistent but filmy.
I like the description of nostalgia as "a quiet pain," and I love that the speaker, like me, still hurts a little that the "unremembered lads" will not lie beside her again. She doesn't hurt for the specific people (nor do I); they are "unremembered." But she mourns that the past is gone irrevocably.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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 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 really identify with this poem, especially lately. I've made some new and very young friends (I'm looking at you, Shea, Alyssa, Rory, and Miranda) in the last several months, and while they are rocking awesome, they make me remember my age.
I'm really not that old, only 31, but when I see them being all 20 and 21, I can see, in a way I usually don't, how much I have changed in that 10 years. I see myself more content and stable and rational and fulfilled, but I feel a loss of wildness and spontaneity and violent emotions. To be completely truthful, I sometimes miss the drama and the upheaval, the new loves and the sowing of oats.
This sonnet really captures my sense that the old days have left a permanent impression on me, but that the details have faded a little. I remember my teens and twenties as a feeling and a mood, rather than a series of events. The image of "ghosts . . . that tap and sigh upon the glass" is just how I remember the past - insistent but filmy.
I like the description of nostalgia as "a quiet pain," and I love that the speaker, like me, still hurts a little that the "unremembered lads" will not lie beside her again. She doesn't hurt for the specific people (nor do I); they are "unremembered." But she mourns that the past is gone irrevocably.
