The Concert
by Edna St Vincent Millay
No, I will go alone.
I will come bak when it's over.
Yes, of course I love you.
No, it will not be long.
Why may you not come with me?--
You are too much my lover.
You would put yourself
Between me and song.
If I go alone,
Quiet and suavely clothed,
My body will die in its chair
And over my head a flame,
A mind that is twice my own,
Will mark with icy mirth
The wise advance and retreat
Of armies without a country,
Storming a nameles gate,
Hurling terrible javelins down
From the shouting walls of a singing town
Where no women wait!
Armies clean of love and hate,
Marching lines of pitiless sound
Climbing hills to the sun and hurling
Golden spears to the ground!
Up the lines a silver runner
Bearing a banner whereon is scored
The milk and steel of a bloodless wound
Healed at length by the sword!
You and I have nothing to do with music.
We may not make of music a filgree frame,
Within which you and I,
Tenderly glad we came,
Sit smiling, hand in hand.
Come now, be content.
I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall only be a little taller
Than when I went.
-----------------------
Good night all.
--db
Tags: edna st vincent millay, poetry, the concert
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