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Edna St. Vincent Millay
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“The soul can split the sky in two, / And let the face of God shine through.”
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“For rain it hath a friendly sound / To one who's six feet under ground; / And scarce the friendly voice or face, / A grave is such a quiet place.”
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“And, through and over everything, / A sense of glad awakening.”
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“God, I can push the grass apart / And lay my finger on Thy heart!”
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“The world stands out on either side. / No wider than the heart is wide; / Above the world is stretched the sky / No higher than the soul is high.”
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“Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive. ”
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“O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!”
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“And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse ... ”
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“I love humanity but I hate people.”
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“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!”
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“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: / Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”
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“The fabric of my faithful love / No power shall dim or ravel / Whilst I stay here, — but oh, my dear, / If I should ever travel!”
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“With him for a sire and her for a dam, / What should I be but just what I am?”
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“I had a little Sorrow, / Born of a little Sin.”
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“Down you mongrel, Death! / Back into your kennel!”
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“I am waylaid by beauty.”
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“... I know that Beauty must ail and die, / And will be born again, — but ah, to see / Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky! / Oh, Autumn! Autumn! — What is the Spring to me?”
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“Life is a quest and love a quarrel ... ”
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“Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.”
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“April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
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“Life must go on; / I forget just why.”
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“All your lovely words are spoken. / Once the ivory box is broken, / Beats the golden bird no more.”
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“Birds that cannot even sing — / Dare to come again in spring!”
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“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.”
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“Heap not on this mound / Roses that she loved so well; / Why bewilder her with roses, / That she cannot see or smell?”
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“After all, my erstwhile dear, / My no longer cherished, / Need we say it was not love, / Just because it perished?”
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“I know I am but summer to your heart, / And not the full four seasons of the year ... ”
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“And all the loveliest things there be come simply, so it seems to me.”
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“This have I known always: Love is no more / Than the wide blossom which the wind assails, / Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore, / Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales: / Pity me that the heart is slow to learn / What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”
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“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.”
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“'Tis not love's going hurts my days, / But that it went in little ways.”
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“We shall hardly notice in a year or two. / You can get accustomed to anything.”
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“I drank at every vine. / The last was like the first. / I came upon no wine / So wonderful as thirst.”
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“Music my rampart, and my only one.”
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“Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!”
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“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”
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“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.”
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“Life has no friend ... ”
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“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 ... ”
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“Women are / Superior to men in every way, / But chiefly in the intellect.”
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“Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”
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“I dread no more the first white in my hair, / Or even age itself, the easy shoe, / The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair: / Time, doing this to me, may alter too / My sorrow, into something I can bear.”
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“I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.”
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“Man has never been the same since God died.”
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“Time does not forfeit; Time does not abstain; / The future in one fist, he eats the past. / I know this; yet again and yet again / I try to hold the present, make it last / One moment, that the simple great be slain / Not unperceived. No hope — Time eats so fast.”
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“That chill is in the air / Which the wise know well, and even have learned to bear. / This joy, I know, / Will soon be under snow.”
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“Set the foot down with distrust upon the crust of the world — it is thin.”
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“All will be well, we say; it is a habit, like the rising of the sun, / For our country to prosper; who can prevail against us? No one.”
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“Parrots, tortoises and redwoods / Live a longer life than men do, / Men a longer life than dogs do, / Dogs a longer life than love does.”
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“There are no islands any more.”
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“Progress — progress is the dirtiest word in the language — who ever told us — / And made us believe it — that to take a step forward was necessarily, was always / A good idea?”
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“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”
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“Please don't think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don't think me either.”
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“... without music I should wish to die.”
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“I find that I never lose Bach. I don't know why I have always loved him so. Except that he is so pure, so relentless and incorruptible, like a principle of geometry.”
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“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the day-time, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.”
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“ I am all the time talking about you, and bragging, to one person or another. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had a tale in his heart he must unfold to all. I am always button-holing somebody and saying, 'Someday you must meet my mother.' And then I am off. And nothing stops me till the waiters close up the café. I do love you so much, my mother. ... If I didn't keep calling you mother, anybody reading this would think I was writing to my sweetheart. And he would be quite right.”
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“ Do you suppose, when you and I are dead, dear, they will publish the Love Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Mother?”
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“I find it's as hard to live down an early triumph as an early indiscretion ... ”
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“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down ... Kathleen is about to publish a book. If it's a good book, nothing can harm her. If it's a bad book, nothing can help her.”
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“I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.”
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“I am not a tentative person. Whatever I do, I give up my whole self to it ...”
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“Ladies: I have received from you recently several communications, inviting me to be your Guest of Honor at a function to take place in Washington some time this month. I replied, not only that I was unable to attend, but that I regretted this inability; I said that I was sensible to the honor you did me, and that I hoped you would invite me again. Your recent gross and shocking insolence to one of the most distinguished writers of our time has changed all that. It is not in the power of an organization which has insulted Elinor Wylie, to honor me. And indeed I should feel it unbecoming on my part, to sit as Guest of Honor in a gathering of writers, where honor is tendered not so much for the excellence of one's literary accomplishment as for the circumspection of one's personal life. Believe me, if the eminent object of your pusillanimous attack has not directed her movements in conformity with your timid philosophies, no more have I mine. I too am eligible for your disesteem. Strike me too from your lists, and permit me, I beg you, to share with Elinor Wylie a brilliant exile from your fusty province.”
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“It's not true that life is one damn thing after another — it's one damn thing over and over ... ”
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“... it may be said of me by Harper & Brothers, that although I reject their proposals, I welcome their advances.”
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“Oh, you mean I'm a homosexual! Of course I am, and heterosexual too, but what's that got to do with my headache?”
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“Evil alone has oil for every wheel.”
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“Oh sovereign angel, / Wide winged stranger above a forgetful earth, / Care for me, care for me. Keep me unaware of danger / And not regretful / And not forgetful of my innocent birth.”
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“The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.”
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“Sweep the floor, and sweep it again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the day after that and every day of your life; — if not that floor, why then — some other floor.”
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“Although we sometimes did without a few of life's necessities, we rarely lacked for its luxuries.”
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“Whether or not we find what we are seeking / Is idle, biologically speaking.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, U.S. poet, playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner
(1892 - 1950)
Edna St. Vincent Millay Boissevain also wrote her prose under the name Nancy Boyd.