Explore "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 in 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.