A Saturday Poem

Sonnet xxxii

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain. 

What struck me about this poem, other than the poem itself, is that a previous owner of my old hard-covered, 1950s edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Collected Works, penciled in "So True June 1956" above it. I still have some more to read, but from what I can tell, this is the only note written in the book. The book may look old, but before I came along, it's pages were crisp and neat. Now they are often dog-eared, but still, this little note remains the only non-printed writing. It means a lot to me. Vincent felt such wonderfully fierce emotions and passions in her lifetime. Apparently anonymous owner did too. And so have I. I feel kind of like one with these ghosts.