I recently moved back to a college town I lived in last school year. It's good to be back, really good to be back, but this place is a ghost town of memories. This poem doesn't really have much to do with my move, but the lines "...the rain / Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply" keep running through my mind. So tonight, I give you a little Millay. I tend to turn to her when I am, as Wordsworth would describe, "in vacant or in pensive mood."
Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
1 comment:
I just found your blog today... Its brilliant!
Loved this poem and especially those very same lines..
Thanks for this blog... I very much enjoy it.. :)
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