Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love Is Not All

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 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.

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Mamacita says:  Again, we could speak of rhyme scheme and near rhyme, and sonnets.  We could make Shakespearian comparisons and discuss iambic pentameter, if we wanted to.

Do you want to?  I’d much rather talk about love, and memories, and the bargains we make with others and with ourselves in the name of an emotion nobody can describe,  and the things love can and can’t do, and the things we try to do using love as bargain fodder and tender tendered. Love won’t save our lives, but it just might save our souls. Yes, I’d rather talk about these things.

Wouldn’t you?

As for the poet. . . I’m mentioning no examples, but those unmentionables are pretty cool.  Go, Edna!