Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs

-Edna Saint Vincent Millay

 

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

 

I admire this poem for its angry energy from start to finish.  In the opening, the reader does not encounter the traditional "love poem" designed to extole the virtues of a lover, instead, we discover the subject is "not lovelier than lilacs...nor honeysuckle" neither are they "more fair than small single white poppies"--already there is an angry tension expressed in the atypical opening that carries through to the end. As we continue we discover that, nevertheless, the speaker wields power over the speaker in that they are forced to "bend before" the subject. In time, however, the speaker frees themself of the power: "like him who day by day unto his draught / of delicate poison adds him one drop more / till he may drink unharmed the death of ten, / Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed / Each hour more deeply than the hour before, / I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men"--thus, the speaker has finally conditioned themselves against the subject until they are at last free.

 

To be honest, I think the final line: "I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men" is utterly amazing