Afternoon on a Hill – Edna St. Vincent Millay

Afternoon on a Hill
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I will be the gladdest thing  
    Under the sun!  
I will touch a hundred flowers  
    And not pick one.  
I will look at cliffs and clouds
    With quiet eyes,  
Watch the wind bow down the grass,  
    And the grass rise.  

And when lights begin to show  
    Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,  
    And then start down!

Maxfield Parrish, Ecstasy

 

Witch Wife – Edna St. Vincent Millay

John William Waterhouse, Boreas

She is neither pink nor pale,
   And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
   And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
   In the sun ’tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
   or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
   And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
   And she never will be all mine.

Edna St. Vincent Millay