What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why --- Edna St. Vincent Millay

WHAT LIPS MY LIPS HAVE KISSED, AND WHERE, AND WHY (Sonnet XLIII)




What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in 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 me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

---Edna St. Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why


In listening to a recent poetry podcast about notable winter poems, I was surprised when the conversation turned to Edna St. Vincent Millay and her poem "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why." The commentators on the podcast discussed how Millay has somewhat of a less than stellar reputation among academic poetry readers. You can take "academic" out of the last sentence and insert snobby in its place if you would like; I was just trying to be polite. For some reason Millay's poetry has not stood the test of time. Successive generations have not only found reasons to dismiss her poetry, but they've seemingly searched for reasons. I'm not in the camp that feels Millay was a temporary curiosity. She wrote countless poems that are just as stirring today as they were in the first part of the previous century. Today we are privileged to look at this wonderful sonnet of regret and bewilderment courtesy of the unappreciated Edna St. Vincent Millay.

From the beginning this is a poem of questions…and equally a poem where answers are absent. Starting with the image of the lips she has kissed, the poet launches back into memory asking what, where and why. Almost immediately she responds with uncertainty: "I have forgotten, and what arms have lain / Under my head till morning." Millay's syntax is worth a closer look. Notice how she admits her ignorance and lacking memory, only to resume the list with another concrete image of lovers arms under her head as she sleeps. By breaking up her initial list to admit she has "forgotten," Millay infuses the poem with a back and forth tension. Admittedly, the syntax also must work in congruence with the sonnet's rhyme scheme. Honestly, the end words that compose the infrastructure of the poem's rhyme scheme are far from exotic, yet this is a poem where the rhymes are organic and unassuming. When a poem can execute a rhyme scheme this seamlessly without sacrificing the poem's tone, diction, or theme it is a masterwork and worth studying. The natural rhyme scheme also enables the poem's tense inner struggle to move forward by moving backward into the past: "the rain / is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply." The ghosts of past lovers in the cold, damp evening rain fall upon our poet, who claimed to have "forgotten." Millay uses rain as a transformative force to evoke the past and rustle the ghosts from the tidy spots where each of us tucks them away. When something—anything—triggers your past and you are presented with long buried memories of former love how real does it feel?

Millay's trip through her past is not that of a valiant hero returning home. Her heart "stirs a quiet pain / For unremembered lads that not again / Will turn to me at midnight with a cry." The fact that Millay will hear their cries at midnight implies that she is anxious and sleepless over the disruption of her present life with echoes from her past. At this particularly tense moment the poem turns again, this time shifting to a "lonely tree" in winter in a very clear metaphor. Like Millay who forgot her lovers, the tree does not know "what birds have vanished one by one," but the distance from herself afforded by the metaphor allows her to use the tree to admit that it "knows its boughs more silent than before." It is a metaphorical revelation that sets up the poem's sharp and emotion laden ending. At the point where traditionally a sonnet turns, Millay succumbs to the truth: "I cannot say what loves have come and gone, / I only know that summer sang in me / A little while, that in me sings no more." The identity of the lovers, the specifics of their features, is ultimately not what she, or any of us, need to concern ourselves with. Even though details are crucial to reality, the end impact is something that can't be replicated: emotional recall. Where Millay's emotional state was balanced at the beginning of the poem, she is certainly fatigued by the end. This fatigue isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does bring with it an honest pain. Admitting to herself that the full warmth of summer that we associate with being in love has long ago left her is very brave. Millay's courage exists in making herself vulnerable and sharing her unfulfilling truth with the world by writing and publishing the poem. The next time a poetry blueblood stoops to disparage Edna St. Vincent Millay I hope he or she will pause and remember this poem and numerous others where Millay crafts startlingly powerful lines and images.