Sonnet "Oh You Will Be Sorry"

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard?-
"What a big book for such a little head!"
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink.
Oh, I shall love you still and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafy, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And someday when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not to stormy
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

(From "A Few Figs From Thistles")

Millay was so ahead of her times when it came to the recognition of women as the intellectual equals of men. For her first poetry competition she submitted her epic work "Renascence" and got second place, even though most people agreed her poem was better than the first place poem, which was written by a man. In fact, the man who wrote the winning poem wrote her a letter telling her that he believed her poem was better than his, and that she should have won first place.

I like the flippancy of this poem too. The casual endearment of the line "I shall love you still and all of that" but her determination that she will be gone one day because he does not appreciate her for what she really is.

Indeed, the man she married was in love, not just with Vincent, but with her poetry as well.

Time Sonnet

Time, that renews the tissues of this frame,
That built the child and hardened the soft bone,
Taught him to wail, to blink, to walk alone,
Stare, question, wonder, give the world a name,
Forget the watery darkness from whence he came,
Attends no less the boy to manhood grown,
Brings him new raiment, strips him of his own;
All skins are shed at length, remorse, even shame.
Such hope is mine, if this indeed be true,
I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My anguish, into something I can bear.

(From "Wine From These Grapes" 1934)

This sonnet seems to flow through a lifetime in a minute.

Fatal Interview - Sonnet III "No Lack of Counsel"

No lack of counsel from the shrewd and wise
How love may be acquired and how conserved
Warrants this laying bare before your eyes
My needle to your north abruptly swerved;
If I would hold you, I must hide my fears
Lest you be wanton, lead you to believe
My compass to another quarter veers,
Little surrender, lavishly receive.
But being like my mother the brown earth
Fervent and full of gifts and free from guile,
Liefer would I you loved me for my worth,
Though you should love me but a little while,
Than for a philtre any doll can brew, —
Though thus I bound you as I long to do.

(From "Fatal Interview" 1931)

This is the third sonnet in the Fatal Interview set, and it sets the tone early on for how her relationship with Dillon went. I love the compass metaphor and her declaration that she would rather be loved for her who she really is.

"I Shall Go Back Again"

I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed shall escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand.
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

(From "Harpweaver" 1923)

Ocean imagery, love lost, nature rediscovered and a passion undefeated by heartache. The last two lines are my favorite.

Sonnet X From "Sonnets From An Ungrafted Tree"

She had forgotten how the August night
Was level as a lake beneath the moon,
In which she swam a little, losing sight
Of shore; and how the boy, who was at noon
Simple enough, not different from the rest,
Wore now a pleasant mystery as he went,
Which seemed to her an honest enough test
Whether she loved him, and she was content.
So loud, so loud the million crickets' choir . . .
So sweet the night, so long-drawn-out late . . .
And if the man were not her spirit's mate,
Why was her body sluggish with desire?
Stark on the open field the moonlight fell,
But the oak tree's shadow was deep and black and secret as a well.

(From "Harpweaver and Other Poems" 1923)

This is the first poem I'm sharing from a collection Millay titled "Sonnets From An Ungrafted Tree" which she published the "Harpweaver" collection in 1923. These sonnets tell the story of a woman who is caring for her dying husband, who she has been separated from for many years. This particular poem is part of a two poem set that tells her memories of how they met many years ago.

In the frigid cold of March, the passion of this poem and its description of a warm summer night are especially wonderful. The story it tells, of interpreting desire as love, is a familiar one that reminds me of the dialouge in Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire." I love the way that Millay phrases the rationalization her character is engaging in "Which seemed to her an honest enough test/ Whether she loved him." The rest of the sonnet series tells us that it was not love, but I'll save the rest for later.

"I Shall Forget You" Sonnet

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

This sonnet was printed as a companion to one I posted earlier this month in the post entitled " 'I Should Have' Sonnet." While the first sonnet I posted speaks to a love lost, this one speaks to an current affair that she feels sure will end, although she wishes that it wouldn't. The boldness of the first line and the flippant character of the middle section complement each other wonderfully. She is dooming this flirtation to an end but while it goes on, she seems to say, we might as well have fun.

The last two lines have a haunting quality that speak beyond the present situation of the poem and to Millay's view of relationships in general. Our biological natures are not predisposed to aid us in our search for true love, and whether we find it or not we will live and die the same. It is a morbid take on the search for love, especially in such a flirty poem, but Millay was often grave and this little sonnet is simply no exception.

"Whereas At Morning" Fatal Interview - Sonnet 24

Whereas at morning in a Jeweled Crown
I bit my fingers and was hard to please,
Having shook disaster till the fruit fell down
I feel tonight more happy and at ease:
Feet running in the corridors, men quick—
Buckling their sword-belts, bumping down the stair,
Challenge, and rattling bridge-chain, and the click
Of hooves on pavement—this will clear the air.
Private this chamber as it has not been
In many a month of muffled hours; almost,
Lulled by the uproar, I could lie serene
And sleep, until all's won, until all's lost,
And the door's opened and the issue shown,
And I walk forth Hell's Mistress—or my own.

(From "Fatal Interview" 1931)


This has been one of my favorite "Fatal Interview" sonnets since I first found Millay many years ago. Her medieval metaphor encompasses the entire poem here, and yet she still manages to make it a parable, not a just a story. Not a line of the poem steps outside the bounds of the scene she has set, yet we can tell she isn't really talking about a castle and a battle - she is talking about her relationship with Dillon.

This poem makes more sense in the context of Fatal Interview, as it is situated after a poem condeming falsehood and directly before a poem that likens desire to a dangerous walk in the woods at night. While the former poem is a decision not to lie and the latter is a description of the risk she has taken, the poem in the middle is an examination of her actions. It is more active than reflective, and it reminds me of poem 22 (two sonnets before this one) that begins "Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane/I shall be dead or I shall be with you!" The resemblance to the last line of this poem "And I walk forth Hell's Mistress—or my own" is clear. She has made a demand and awaits an answer that will either move her relationship forward or end it. It is bold, and somewhat feminist, and most of all it is excellent poetry.

"Night Is My Sister" From Fatal Interview

Night is my sister, and how deep in love,
How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,
There to be fretted by the drag and shove
At the tide's edge, I lie - these things and more:
Whose arm alone between me and the sand,
Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,
Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,
She could advise you, should you care to hear.
Small chance, however, in a storm so black,
A man will leave his friendly fire and snug
For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back
To drip and scatter shells upon the rug.
No one but night, with tears on her dark face,
Watches beside me in this windy place.

(From "Fatal Interview" 1931)

I love this poem. It sounds desperate, it's heavy on dark metaphor and it goes out of its way to rhyme, but I love it. There is something so loud and real about this poem, like hearing the sound of your own heartbeat in a pitch black room. I love the imagery of scattering shells on the rug in front of the fire. I can see the sand in her hair, smell the seaweed and hear the shells hitting the floor.

This is another sonnet from Fatal Interview, which means it is another sonnet about Dillon. Millay's turbulent relationship with him was terrible for her, but great for her poetry, and this poem is an excellent example of that. She describes herself as sad, pathetic, drowning in love with no hope of comfort - but she does so beautifully.

Flirty Sonnet

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, - let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

(From "Harpweaver" 1923)

Oh come on, you know what this is about.

I love the blunt sincerity she pummels the reader with, with every line becoming more logical and cold and less impulsively passionate. My favorite line here is "To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind."

This is one for the wild times; you can give it out with your fake phone number.

"I Should Have" Sonnet

I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.


I love the simple statement this poem makes about attractions that don’t turn into romances, and the certainty she has, both about what the future would have been and about the memory that this person has of her. It addresses us as the opportunity lost and tells us what we have missed. And she is describing a real phenomenon, the moment when games and flirtation turn to love and seriousness. My favorite line from this poem is “But one more waking from a recurrent dream” as it calls to mind the way multiple similar days can feel like waking up in the same day over and over again.

Now By The Path I Climbed

Now by the path I climbed, I journey back.
The oaks have grown; I have been long away.
Talking with me your memory and your lack
I now descend into a milder day;
Stripped of your love, unburdened of my hope,
Descend the path I mounted from the plain;
Yet steeper than I fancied seems the slope
And stonier, now that I go down again.
Warm falls the dusk; the clanking of a bell
Faintly ascends upon this heavier air;
I do recall those grassy pastures well:
In early spring they drove the cattle there.
And close at hand should be a shelter, too,
From which the mountain peaks are not in view.

(From Fatal Interview)

Fatal Interview is an extensive series of sonnets Millay wrote about her turbulent affair with George Dillon. This sonnet is found in the second half of the collection, so it makes sense that here is speaking about the end of the passionate relationship she had with Dillon. The metaphor of descending from a hill in the springtime is a descriptive one, and I love the alteration between metaphor and reality. This is especially apparent in the lines "Talking with me your memory and your lack/I now descend into a milder day" where in the first line she refers to the loss of her lover and in the second casts the scene of walking down a mountain into milder weather. Although she undoubtedly loved Dillon, he was not the love of her life, and in fact her affair with him occurred during her marriage to the man she loved most, Eugen Jan Boissevain.

I plan on sharing many more sonnets from this Fatal Interview, as there are some of Millay's most descriptive and passionate work, but I always find it interesting to keep in mind that the person who inspired these poems was but a turbulent season in a life full of many loves.

Sonnet Time!

When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of a sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.

This sonnet captures so perfectly the sensation of being awestruck and the sorrow that so often follows such experiences.