“The pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.”
– Edna St. Vincent Millay
This sonnet by American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay is addressed to a lover and to the latent sense of impermanence and loss built in to all moments when one becomes conscious of great love or great happiness. ‘Fearful of death, yet amorous of sleep,’ the lover like a flower ‘droops for a moment’ and observes ‘the wind whereon its petals shall be laid.’ Edna St. Vincent Millay was only the third woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her work, which ranged from the more soft classical styles of this sonnet, to more radically modern portrayals of femininity and sexuality. Herself bisexual and polyamorous, her overlapping desires for the people in her life are expressed by her passionate poetry and letters.
“When You, That at This Moment Are to Me”
When you, that at this moment are to me
Dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
And be no more the warder of my heart,
Whereof again myself shall hold the key;
And be no more—what now you seem to be—
The sun, from which all excellences start
In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;
I shall remember only of this hour—
And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep—
The pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.
Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
From: Collected Poems