by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)
Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to...
Language: English
Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, And lie disheveled in the grass apart, A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain, While rainy evening drips to misty night, And misty night to cloudy morning clears, And clouds disperse across the gathering light, And birds grow noisy, and the sun appears Had I bethought me then, sweet love, sweet thorn, How sharp an anguish even at the best, When all's requited and the future sworn, The happy Hour can leave within the breast, I had not so come running at the call Of one whoe loves me little, if at all.
About the headline (FAQ)
Authorship:
- by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in Fatal Interview, first published 1931 [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 Ellis Bonoff Kohs (b. 1916), "Post mortem" [ low voice and piano ], from Fatal Interview [sung text not yet checked]
- by Robert Manno (b. 1944), "Sweet love, sweet thorn", published 1975 [ soprano, piano ], from Portrait of Millay, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Robert Manno
This text was added to the website: 2005-06-08
Line count: 14
Word count: 112