Sonnets 07: When I Too Long Have Looked Upon Your Face

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



When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

30 sec read
102

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABBCBCDEDEFF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 554
Words 102
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

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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    "Sonnets 07: When I Too Long Have Looked Upon Your Face" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9445/sonnets-07:-when-i-too-long-have-looked-upon-your-face>.

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