Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This I have known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom the the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Published around 1929 - Still looking this up
Just a beautiful poem about love and loss and nature. No real reason, just thought I'd share it today.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Recuerdo
Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
From "A Few Figs From Thistles" 1922
This poem is one of Millay's more fun and (I like to think) summery pieces. It is about comraderie and travel and generosity and love. I wonder which ferries she was riding on - perhaps some of the same routes that travel now between Rockland and the islands of North Haven and Vinalhaven in Penobscot Bay.
Islands you travel to by ferry; apples and pears and subway fares and a beautiful sunrise - so many ways in which Maine and Washington are twins, sitting a country apart at similar latitudes.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
From "A Few Figs From Thistles" 1922
This poem is one of Millay's more fun and (I like to think) summery pieces. It is about comraderie and travel and generosity and love. I wonder which ferries she was riding on - perhaps some of the same routes that travel now between Rockland and the islands of North Haven and Vinalhaven in Penobscot Bay.
Islands you travel to by ferry; apples and pears and subway fares and a beautiful sunrise - so many ways in which Maine and Washington are twins, sitting a country apart at similar latitudes.
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