~Sonnet~
Edna St. Vincent Millay


Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by
Pity me not for the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This I have 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




~Alms~
Edna St. Vincent Millay


My heart is what it was before,
A place where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,
And I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight;
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, -and the birds
May take or leave them as they will.




~Sonnet~
Edna St. Vincent Millay


I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest,
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk by your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.




~The Princess Recalls Her One Adventure~
Edna St. Vincent Millay


Hard is my pillow
Of down from the duck's breast;
Harsh the linen cover;
I cannot rest.

Fall down, my tears,
Upon the fine hem,
Upon the lonely letters
Of my long name;
Drown the sigh of them.

We stood by the lake
And we neither kissed nor spoke;
We heard how the small waves
Lurched and broke,
And chuckled in the rock.

We spoke and turned away.
We never kissed at all.
Fall down, my tears.
I wish that you might fall
On the road by the lake,
Where my cob went lame,
And I stood with the groom
Till the carriage came.




~A Red, Red Rose~
Robert Burns


O, my love's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
O my love's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will love thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my love.
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!




~A White Rose~
John Boyle O'Reilly


The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.




~Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her~
Christopher Brennan


If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.




~To His Coy Mistress~
Andrew Marvell


Had we but world enough, and time
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day
Thou by the Indian Ganges side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on they forehead gaze
Two hundred to adore each breast
But thirty thousand to the rest
An age at least to every part
And the last age should show your heart
For, Lady, you deserve this state
Nor would I love at lower rate

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity
Thy beauty shall no more be found
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity
And your quaint honor turn to dust
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires
Now let us sport while we may
And now, like amourous birds of prey
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run




~The Passionate Shepherd to his Love~
Christopher Marlowe


Come live with me, and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills and fields
Woods, or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals

And I will make thee a bed of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull
Fair lined slippers for the cold
With buckles of the purest gold

A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs
And if these pleasures may thee move
Come live with me, and be my love

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning
If these delights thy mind may move
Then live with me, and be my love



~The Road Not Taken~
Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference