April is National Poetry Month! Edna St Vincent Millay, "Recuerdo"

April is National Poetry Month! You all know what this means.

(Oh god, it's April first, I need to pay my rent! And, holy shit, I really need to do my taxes. But that's not what I was getting at.)


I dearly love this poem, I'm busy, and Millay on April 1st is becoming a personal tradition.* Once again:


Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Recuerdo."


We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.


*Also, writing "MY LAST DUCHESS" on any available chalkboard/whiteboard/wall-like substance each April, but I think I've mentioned that to date, no one has ever ever ever gotten it, including several English majors. At this point, I'm thinking that if anyone ever does get it, I may be fated to marry them.