"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why," Edna St. Vincent Millay

[lnhammer]

Enough theoretical discussion -- back to the love poems. Here's one by one of the better love poets of the last century.


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 to-night, 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 the 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.


Do you have a favorite love sonnet?

---L.

Comments

[gramina]

My favorite is actually also Millay (though I admit a lasting fondness for "My Mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun"):

Love Is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

[cecilegrey]

Wow, I love that.

[lnhammer]

That is an excellent sonnet.

(Even aside from the content, I especially like its demonstration of controlling the pacing of a sonnet, which is not something that gets talked about much. But then, pacing is rarely talked about in lyric forms, as opposed to narrative and dramatic ones.)

---L.

[gramina]

Yes; one of the things I like about it is that you can read the poem out loud as though it were prose -- I'm not sure how to describe the quality I'm talking about. Some of it is the way the lines often continue straight on through the line breaks, and some of it is the naturalness of the word choices and suchlike, but ... ? There ought to be a way to say what I mean without an entire paragraph of opacity :)

I also like how it almost has two turns in it, making three sections instead of the usual two -- there's the first 8 lines, talking about all the things love can't do; then there's five (and a half?) talking about what might be motive enough to give up the memory of love. That final "It well might be. I do not think I would" catches my breath every time I read it.

[spiralsheep]

I love the sting in the tail. When she wrote that sonnet, Millay was a professional poet who had sold her work:

"Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would."

I think she did (note: although not every "I" in fiction/poetry is autobiographical). :-)

Have you read her first poem, written when she was 15? It's a remarkably mature work.

[(Anonymous)]

"I think she did..."

Well, only in the abstract sense of 'trade,' though -- that is, she incorporated the reference into a poem which she then published, but she didn't *give away* the memory, which is how I'd always read it. That is, she still has the memory herself - it has not been lost to her.

Sharing a memory of love increases it, in my opinion; I suspect it's the giving-it-away-so-I-don't-have-it-any-more she was referencing.

I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

[spiralsheep]

I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.

I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, —
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Re: I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

[bookblather]

Baha, that last line. Millay is one of my favorite poets precisely for those last lines.

Re: I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

[primeideal]

I'm not much for love poetry but while we're on Millay and her stingers, I must recommend "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed." http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-being-born-a-woman-and-distressed/

The Italian rhyme scheme at the end has its ups and downs. The triple two-syllable rhyme is spectacular, but I could kind of see "reason" coming from "brain" and it wasn't as exciting as it might otherwise have been.

Re: I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

[spiralsheep]

\o/

Re: I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

[spiralsheep]

That sonnet was the one that first sold me on Millay. As a reader I love the punchline(s) but as a writer I have to admire the set-up more:

and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far

Heh.

[bookblather]

Oh, I love that. Millay is such a great poet, so good with words and cleverly understated.

[cecilegrey]

That is a beautiful poem. :)

That depends which sort of love....

[spiralsheep]

I love your choice. Millay wrote a surprising number of worthwhile love-related sonnets and I always find when I read them that I appreciate how she managed to vary her themes.

My choice is a cliche but it's a cliche because so many people love it.

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I Love thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[lnhammer]

I admit I'm more fond of EBB's #23, but that's a worthy choice withall.

---L.

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[spiralsheep]

23 is a bit gothic and overly dramatic for my taste, although it reads less so within its context in the sequence, but it's a Good Thing there are enough differing forms of love to go around. So, for anyone who doesn't know it....

Sonnets from the Portuguese 23: Is it indeed so?

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine -
But... so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then love me, Love! look on me - breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

:-)

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[lnhammer]

Whoops~! I meant #22:

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

A rather different sonnet.

---L.

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[spiralsheep]

:-)

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[bookblather]

YES. I am so fond of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her relationship with Robert Browning, and reading this poem in that context just makes it all the more lovely.

Re: That depends which sort of love....

[spiralsheep]

\o/

[bookblather]

Shakespearian nut here; my favorite love sonnet is forever #29.


When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

[lnhammer]

*big grin*

[spiralsheep]

Perfect, clearly. :-)

[zirconium]

My favorite of favorites is by Countee Cullen:

Some for a little while do love, and some for long;
And some rare few forever and for aye;
Some for the measure of a poet's song,
And some the ribbon width of a summer's day.
Some on a golden crucifix do swear,
And some in blood to plight a fickle troth;
Some struck divinely mad may only stare,
And out of silence weave an iron oath.

So many ways love has none may appear
The bitter best, and none the sweetest worst;
Strange food the hungry have been known to bear,
And brackish water slakes an utter thirst.
It is a rare and tantalizing fruit
Our hands reach for, but nothing absolute.

[lnhammer]

Oo, I like that sestet.

---L.