POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines MILLAY Menu

Millay  
Edna St.Vincent Millay
1892-1950

"On Hearing a
Symphony of Beethoven"

 

Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.
With you alone is excellence and peace,
Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.
Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,
With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,
The spiteful and the stingy and the rude
Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.
This moment is the best the world can give:
The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.
Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,
Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,
A city spell-bound under the aging sun.
Music my rampart, and my only one.

Buy Edna St.Vincent Millay's poetry

POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines MILLAY Menu