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by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

Only until this cigarette is ended
Language: English 
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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), written 1921, appears in Second April, no. 4 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Sheila Silver (b. 1946), "Only until this cigarette is ended", copyright © 2013 [ soprano and piano ], from Beauty Intolerable, no. 5, Argenta Music
        Publisher: Sheila Silver [external link]  [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-02-14
Line count: 14
Word count: 107

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