To A Young Poet
Time cannot break the bird’s wing from the bird.
Bird and wing together
Go down, one feather.
No thing that ever flew,
Not the lark, not you,
Can die as others do.
Photo by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) Wikimedia Commons
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950) was an American poet and playwright and the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for The Harp-Weaver, and Other Poems). She was also known for her many love affairs, with both women and men.
See other Tuesday poems here
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
13 July, 2010 at 11:23 am
immortalmuse
Flighty, you might say. Or flirty? Poet as bird — a favorite image of Millay’s. To wit, the gaggle of poets in “Euclid Alone.” See comments at http://wp.me/pDgky-4b
13 July, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Kay Cooke
A wonderful writer indeed. Thanks.
13 July, 2010 at 5:26 pm
A J Ponder
very nice, almost crow-bitter or maybe that’s just an association with the black Tuesday feather.
13 July, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Claire Beynon
Essence of bird, essence of poet? A portrait and a self-portrait?
Thanks for this, Janis.