Millay on dogs

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photograph by Berthold Litjes

Parrots,
tortoises

&

redwoods 

live a longer life than men do; 

Men 

a longer life than dogs do; 

Dogs 

a longer life than love does.

edna saint vincent millay

.

.                        

Millay on fashion

 .

Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?—
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste; 
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown. . .it is not seen, 
But it is there. 

-Edna Saint Vincent Millay(the plaid dress)

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where you'll find me-reading

.

When this book, unread,

Rots to earth obscurely,

And no more to any breast,

Close against the clamorous swelling

Of the thing there is no telling,

Are these pages pressed!

When this book is mould,

And a book of many

Waiting to be sold

For a casual penny,

In a little open case,

In a street unclean and cluttered,

Where a heavy mud is spattered

From the passing drays,
Stranger, pause and look;

From the dust of ages

Lift this little book,

Read me, do not let me die!

Search the fading letters, finding

Steadfast in the broken binding

All that once was I!

poem excerpt from Edna Saint Vincent Millay's The Poet and His Book

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