Today is also National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Love Is Not All Edna St. Vincent Millay

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 can not 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 well may 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 well may be. I do not think I would.

Comments

[seraphim-12.livejournal.com]

WOW! This poem is beautiful. I don't know what to say . . . . I am completely blown away!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? It's one of my favorites; it's just so powerful in a quiet way.

[miep.livejournal.com]

Vincent does that to me every. damn. time.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yep. She's an amazing poet.