Analysis of What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII)

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.


Scheme ABBAABCADEFGDF
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110101 1101001111 1011110101 1111011101 0101010101 0011110101 1111101 111111101 101010101 1111110111 1111110101 1101111101 1101110101 0101101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 594
Words 118
Sentences 3
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 457
Words per stanza (avg) 116
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

35 sec read
211

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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