Sonnet IV from “Second April”

Only until this cigarette is ended,

A little moment at the end of all,

While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,

And in the firelight to a lance extended,

Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,

The broken shadow dances on the wall,

I will permit my memory to recall

The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.

And then adieu, – farewell! – the dream is done.

Yours is a face of which I can forget

The color and the features, every one,

The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;

But in your day this moment is the sun

Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was one of America’s most widely read poets in her lifetime. She grew up in Rockland and Camden, and won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923. This poem is one of 12 untitled sonnets in her book “Second April” published in 1921.