'I think I should have loved you" by Edna St. Vincent Milay

I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
--Edna St. Vincent Milay


My summer of poetry study has sadly not been working out. Happily, it has not been working out because I've been gallivanting like Amy March, and so I have spent few weekends at home and even fewer alone. Of all the reasons not to study romantic poetry, living it is my favorite.

However, I do want to get to Ms. Milay here. She is marvelous.

This poem...this poem is funny. I scribbled a few initials next to it over the years, so clearly I felt that this poem applied to more than one rejected swain. Both I met in high school, and...you know, you can't will yourself to like someone that you don't. In the case of both, I only wished for more time after they had moved on. Had they returned and offered another chance, I most likely would have done what I did the first they chased me: run for the hills as fast as my combat boots would carry me.