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by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

Sonnet
Language: English 
I shall go back again to the [bleak]1 shore
And build a little shanty on the sand,
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Briccetti: "bleak"; further changes may exist not noted.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in The Harp-Weaver and other poems, in Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree, first published 1923 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Thomas B. Briccetti (b. 1936), "Sonnet" [SSATB chorus and piano], from Millaydy's Madrigals [
     text not verified 
    ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-10-02
Line count: 14
Word count: 115

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