"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.