Explore "Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!" by Edna St. Vincent Millay on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I know I might have lived in such a way / As to have suffered only pain: / Loving not man nor dog;
Not money, even; feeling / Toothache perhaps, but never more than an hour away
From skill and novocaine;
Making no contacts, dealing with life through agents, drinking one cocktail, betting two dollars, wearing raincoats in the rain;
Betrayed at length by no one but the fog / Whispering to the wing of the plane.
"Fountain," I have cried to that unbubbling well, "I will not drink of thy water! " Yet I thirst / For a mouthfu l of-not to swallow, only to rinse my mouth in -peace. And while the eyes of the past condemn, / The eyes of the present narrow into assignation. And. worst . . .
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed; I shall get no help from them.