Song For Young Lovers In A City

Though less for love than for the deep
Though transient death that follows it
These childish mouths grown soft in sleep
Here in a rented bed have met,

They have not met in love's despite.
Such tiny loves will leap and flare
Lurid as coke-fires in the night,
Against a background of despair.

To treeless grove, to grey retreat
Descend in flocks from corniced eaves
The pigeons now on sooty feet,
To cover them with linden leaves.

(Published in Poetry Magazine, 1938)

This poem is interesting in that it is about someone else (at least in theory). Millay wrote very often about her own feelings and experiences, and less often about what she imagined others felt and did. In this poem she draws for us a picture of two people younger than herself, genders unspecified. The first lines pose a riddle, what is the "transient death" she is talking about here that draws these two together? I love the line "lurid as coke-fires in the night" and the image of a sad, grey city that she paints to contrast the relationship she describes. There is a beautiful, song-like quality to the last stanza that sticks with you as the poem ends. Enjoy!