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