Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1928
Channel: David Amster
Date: 2020-07-31

One of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets! What I like about Millay is she writes about very personal concerns, often in an unconventional way, using beautiful, accessible language.

I offer this reading in honor of her brilliance, and in memory of friends and family who have died recently. 

Dirge Without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. 

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

1928

For more about her life and work:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_St._Vincent_Millay