Top 215 Quotes & Sayings by Edna St. Vincent Millay - Page 3

I am not afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves' clothing.

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 still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there. I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.

But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!

Blessed be Death, that cuts in marble What would have sunk to dust!

A Poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay: Grown-up Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?

Life must go on, Though good men die.

Spring 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. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

What terrible fear causes Man to address the Void as Thou?

Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare.

O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard, Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure

Life has no friend.

When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more.

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

But you were something more than young and sweet And fair, - and the long year remembers you.

There is no God. But it does not matter. Man is enough.

I screamed, and--lo!--Infinity Came down and settled over me

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.

Life in itself / Is nothing, / An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. / It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Beauty in all things-no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.

He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.

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

Longing alone is singer to the lute.

Oh, children, growing up to be Adventurers into sophistry, Forbear, forbear to be of those That read the rood to learn the rose.

A grave is such a quiet place.

I hate people but I love gatherings.

That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.

Evil alone has oil for every wheel.

So up I got in anger, And took a book I had, And put a ribbon on my hair To please a passing lad. And, "One thing there's no getting by -- I've been a wicked girl," said I; But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!

The heart grows weary after a little Of what it loved for a little while.

Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom golden in the green grass, this life can be.

There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going.

Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink.

To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough.

And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.

The Englishman foxtrots as he fox-hunts, with all his being, through thickets, through ditches, over hedges, through chiffons, through waiters, over saxophones, to the victorious finish; and who goes home depends on how many the ambulance will accommodate.

I make bean stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself.

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere.

But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach, And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling, The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart. I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, And I lie disheveled in the grass apart, A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain.

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?

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine.

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, that the swift mind beholds at every turn.

When you publish something, it is very much as if you pulled your pants down in public. If what you have written is good, nobody can hurt you; if what you have written is bad, nobody can help you.

Death devours all lovely things.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild swans, come over the town, come over The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

After all my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished; Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?

We were so wholly one I had not thought That we could die apart. I had not thought That I could move,—and you be stiff and still! That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb! I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof In some firm fabric, woven in and out; Your golden filaments in fair design Across my duller fibre.

Although we sometimes did without a few of life's necessities, we rarely lacked for its luxuries.

let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty bondage into luminous air.

Martyred many times must be Who would keep his country free.

Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?

... but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight

I know, but I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

My candle burns at both ends

That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.

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.

Earth does not understand her child, Who from the loud gregarious town Returns, depleted and defiled, To the still woods, to fling him down.

Under my head till morning; but the rain, Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh, Upon the glass and listen for reply.

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.