Apostrophe To Man

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



(On reflecting that the world
 is ready to go to war again)

Detestable race, continue to expunge yourself, die out.
Breed faster, crowd, encroach, sing hymns, build
bombing airplanes;
Make speeches, unveil statues, issue bonds, parade;
Convert again into explosives the bewildered ammonia
and the distracted cellulose;
Convert again into putrescent matter drawing flies
The hopeful bodies of the young; exhort,
Pray, pull long faces, be earnest,
be all but overcome, be photographed;
Confer, perfect your formulae, commercialize
Bacateria harmful to human tissue,
Put death on the market;
Breed, crowd, encroach,
expand, expunge yourself, die out,
Homo called sapiens.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

30 sec read
323

Quick analysis:

Scheme XX AXXXXXBXXXBXXXAX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 664
Words 101
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 2, 16

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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