Departure


It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it's little I care;
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere.

It's little I know what's in my heart,
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go.

I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Nor the roof of a house, nor the eyes of a face.

I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never to stir again,
On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.

But dump or dock, where the path I take
Brings up, it's little enough I care;
And it's little I'd mind the fuss they'll make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.

"Is something the matter, dear," she said,
"That you sit at your work so silently?"
"No, mother, no, 'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the kettle, I'll make the tea."

(From "Harpweaver" 1923)

This poem is one of Millay's better known poems, in fact it has been set to music and you can hear it sung here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFlgrDNUPzc

But it is a strange little poem that conveys a youthful restlessness that is all-consuming and yet powerless. It is a very teenage poem in theme, but it is not from her earliest work. The nature imagery and the underlying drive of desperation are the remarkable points here. The rhyming is good, the verse structure is very Vincent, but I love this poem because it conveys beauty and agitation together and perfectly.

Love Is Not All (Fatal Interview Sonnet XXX)

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It may well be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.

(From "Fatal Interview" 1931)

This sonnet is fairly well known, probably because it is so accessible and easy to remember. The verse structure makes it a classic sonnet but the content makes it classic Millay. The first part of the poem is often said to be the objective part while the second half is the introspective portion, but knowing what we know about this set of poetry and how it was written largely about her affair with Dillon, it is easy to see that the entire poem is very personal.

The first line is an excellent hook, it pulls the reader in with a general statement of truth. She draws pictures of how love cannot save the lives of people who are ill but reminds us that without love we can suffer greatly as well. Then she uses herself as an example of this fact and asks if there is anything that could force her to give away the feeling of the love they share, or the memory of this night together. She concludes, in her humanizing way, that it is possible. But not likely.

Millay knew how precious love was, and in this little sonnet, with its quaint rhymes and imagery, she reminds us to cherish our loves as well.