(no subject)

[la_marquise]

Dirge without Music
Edna St Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Totally.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

That hurts to read but it's worth it. Thank you.

[muninnhuginn]

That's lovely.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Edna St. Vincent Millay is still among my most favorite writers, particularly in the lyrical vein.

It's lovely to see that you, like some other friends in the UK, know her work. Which is something I discovered only recently, relatively speaking. I hadn't realized she was known much or at all outside of the U.S.

Love, C.

[coth.livejournal.com]

Thank you Kari. That is lovely, and it is also lovely that it fits the Mooncat so beautifully.

Hugs and tears.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Hope Mirrlees wrote a very nice poem on the death of her cat. It's in her Collected Poems (Carcanet).