English Poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sonnets 09: Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old. Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей.

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

Sonnets 09: Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old

Let you not say of me when I am old,
In pretty worship of my withered hands
Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
Of such a life as mine run red and gold
Even to the ultimate sifting dust, ”Behold,
Here walketh passionless age!”—for there expands
A curious superstition in these lands,
And by its leave some weightless tales are told.

In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;
Impious no less in ruin than in strength,
When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,
Let you not say, ”Upon this reverend site
The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s other poems:

1. Two Sonnets in Memory
2. When the Year Grows Old
3. Underground System
4. Inland
5. Exiled

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