Only until this cigarette is ended

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The colour and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

33 sec read
597

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDCDCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 565
Words 111
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

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    "Only until this cigarette is ended" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9413/only-until-this-cigarette-is-ended>.

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