Literature/Edna St. Vincent Millay
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1920
Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet in which a woman who cannot recall the lovers she has kissed likens herself to a lonely tree in winter.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,I have forgotten, and what arms have lainUnder my head till morning; but the rainIs full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sighUpon the glass and listen for reply,And in my heart there stirs a quiet painFor unremembered lads that not againWill turn to me at midnight with a cry.Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:I cannot say what loves have come and gone,I only know that summer sang in meA little while, that in me sings no more.