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Edna St Vincent Millay
I went to the bookshop and bought a book of poems by Edna St Vincent Millay. Here is one of them which I thought was rather beautiful for the idea, and the casual diction which nonetheless makes a perfect sonnet. I wanted to share it with you.
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
that you were gone, not to return again—
read from the back-page of a paper, say,
held by a neighbour in a subway train,
how at the corner of this avenue
and such a street (so are the papers filled)
a hurrying man— who happened to be you—
at noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud— I could not cry
aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
with a more careful interest on my face,
or raise my eyes and read with greater care
where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
that you were gone, not to return again—
read from the back-page of a paper, say,
held by a neighbour in a subway train,
how at the corner of this avenue
and such a street (so are the papers filled)
a hurrying man— who happened to be you—
at noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud— I could not cry
aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
with a more careful interest on my face,
or raise my eyes and read with greater care
where to store furs and how to treat the hair.