Edna St. Vincent Millay

“They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don't think it's possible for you to miss me as much as I'm missing you right now”

“After all, my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Just because it perished?”

“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.”

“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 t...”

“Ebb I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.”

“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...”

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

“Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

“The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.”

“Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note In me a beauty that was never mine, How first you knew me in a book I wrote, How first you loved me for a written line....”

“Now goes under, and I watch it go under, the sun That will not rise again. Today has seen the setting, in your eyes cold and senseless as the sea, Of friendship better than bread, and of bright charity That lifts a man a little above the beasts that run. That this could be! That I should live to see...”

“Still must the poet as of old, In barren attic bleak and cold, Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to Such things as flowers and song and you; Still as of old his being give In Beauty's name, while she may live, Beauty that may not die as long As there are flowers and you and song.”

“Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.”

“It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.”

“It is high time we found out about this man Cummings. Let us give him every opportunity to show us at once whether he is a genius, a charlatan, or a congenital defective - and get him off our minds.”

“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”

“God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.”

“We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.”

“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.”

“The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.”

“Music my rampart, and my only one.”

“The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.”

“I've written so many verses and keep on writing so many more that I became afraid that if I didn't write them into one big book, I might forget some of them.”

“I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry st...”

“And all at once the heavy night Fell from my eyes and I could see, -- A drenched and dripping apple-tree, A last long line of silver rain, A sky grown clear and blue again. And as I looked a quickening gust Of wind blew up to me and thrust Into my face a miracle Of orchard-breath, and with the smell...”

“Dirge Without Music I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinke...”

“Stranger, pause and look; From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once was I!”

“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 ye...”

“To Those Without Pity Cruel of heart, lay down my song. Your reading eyes have done me wrong. Not for you was the pen bitten, And the mind wrung, and the song written.”

“And all the loveliest things there be Come simply, so it seems to me.”

“Strange how few After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment.”

“My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing; Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.”

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another- it's one damn thing over and over.”

“I love humanity but I hate people.”

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light.”

“'Tis not love's going hurts my days, but that it went in little ways.”

“After all, my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished, need we say it was no love, just because it perished?”

“And if I loved you Wednesday, well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.”

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”

“Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly; In my own way, and with my full consent. Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely Went to their deaths more proud than this one went. Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping I will confess; but that's permitted me; Day dried my eyes; I was not on...”

“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”

“No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, watches beside me in this windy place.”

“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”

“TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death...”

“Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I'll make you little jackets; I'll make you little trousers From his old pants. There'll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the...”

“And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed, Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?- And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?”

“Second Fig Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.”

“I went to Boston fully expecting to be arrested - arrested by a polizia created by a government that my ancestors rebelled to establish.”

“My god is all gods in one. When I see a beautiful sunset, I worship the god of Nature; when I see a hidden action brought to light, I worship the god of Truth; when I see a bad man punished and a good man go free, I worship the god of Justice; when I see a penitent forgiven, I worship the god of Mer...”

“My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light!”

“What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.”

“My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.”

“Music, my rampart and my only one.”

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!”

“I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went.”

“SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun ’tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can,...”