Explore "Second April: SONNETS" by Edna St. Vincent Millay on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We talk of taxes, and I call you friend; / Well, such you are, -- but well enough we know / How thick about us root, how rankly grow / Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend, / That flourish through neglect, and soon must send / Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow / Our steady senses; how such matters go / We are aware, and how such matters end. / Yet shall be told no meagre passion here; / With lovers such as we forevermore / Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere / Receives the Table's ruin through her door, / Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear, / Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.
II / Into the golden vessel of great song / Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast / Let other lovers lie, in love and rest; / Not we, -- articulate, so, but with the tongue / Of all the world: the churning blood, the long / Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed / Sharply together upon the escaping guest, / The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong. / Longing alone is singer to the lute; / Let still on nettles in the open sigh / The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute / As any man, and love be far and high, / That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit / Found on the ground by every passer-by.