Edna St. Vincent Millay · 1928
Dirge Without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay · 1928
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,— They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses of the world. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Public domain in the UK and the US · serany.app
What Serany thinks about this poem
Background
Millay published it in 1928. She had won the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry ten years earlier, and she wrote this one for nobody in particular.
Meaning
She says straight out that she will not accept it. Clever, kind, lovely people go into the ground, and she knows that is how it is, and she still refuses to say it is all right.
Who's it for
A family who are angry about it and would rather not pretend otherwise. Right for a death that makes no sense to anyone who knew them.
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