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Home  »  Renascence and Other Poems  »  19. “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917.

19. “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

Sonnet II

TIME does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go,—so with his memory they brim!

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him!