by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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 year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, – so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
Per The New Yorker magazine, Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
In the light of PGs recent postings I decided to try a comment. So far there have been fewer problems than usual as I don’t need to log into WordPress. Time will tell if this is actually posted.
I guess though that it behoves me to say something about the OP. So here we go: I quite like this sonnet – and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s work in general – but my preference at the moment is for something a bit more astringent, say her sonnet starting “I, being born a woman and distressed …”
And to test the editing function I’ll add a link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148564/i-being-born-a-woman-and-distressed
The link worked for me. Interesting poem.