When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning there remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Age
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.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Love
If I love you Wednesday, What is that to you? I do not love you Thursday—so much is true.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Love
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.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Absence
It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it’s one damn thing over and over.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Life and Living
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Childhood, Youth
I make beanstalks; I’m a builder, like yourself.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Dreams
I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Summer, Seasons
Love me, please; I love you; I can bear to be your friend. So ask of me anything … I am not a tentative person. Whatever I do I give up my whole self to it.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Dedication, Friendship, Commitment
Life is a quest and love a quarrel …
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Love
My heart is warm with the friend 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.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Travel
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
What a big book for such a little head!
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Women
I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Wine, Alcohol
Under my head till morning; but the rain is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply….
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Weather
Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world—it is thin.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Caution
A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Books, Reading
I have loved badly, loved the great
Too soon, withdrawn my words too late;
And eaten in an echoing hall
Alone and from a chipped plate
The words that I withdrew too late.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Seasons, Gardening
God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: God
No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,
Watches beside me in this windy place.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Weather
Not Truth, but Faith, it is
That keeps the world alive.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Faith
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.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Topics: Excess
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Natalie Clifford Barney American Literary Figure
- Mary Oliver American Poet
- William Congreve English Dramatist
- Colley Cibber English Playwright
- Lope de Vega Spanish Playwright
- Henrik Ibsen Norwegian Playwright
- Christopher Marlowe English Playwright
- Tennessee Williams American Playwright
- Walt Whitman American Poet
- William Motter Inge American Playwright
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