Sonnet I: Thou art not lovelier than lilacs

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



Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
  Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
  Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
  I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
  Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
  Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
  Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

34 sec read
162

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDECDE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 628
Words 116
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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