Edna St. Vincent Millay (Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей)

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Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
”Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s other poems:

  1. Two Sonnets in Memory
  2. When the Year Grows Old
  3. Sonnets 09: Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old
  4. Portrait by a Neighbour
  5. Underground System

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