Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay | Poems Rethabile Likes
Love Is Not All
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release,
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release,
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.
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"No poet is inexhaustible. When fatigue comes as it must, it must be diagnosed. We must always strive towards the glorified." — From Feeding The Beasts, my second poetry collection.
What does the female poet search for, what does she long for, why does she write, what motivates her, what inspires her? Is it acceptance, is she dying to belong to a world that cannot define her?
It is her country, it is her country, it is her country, and every female poet is the bride of creativity, or as I put it:
"Creativity, I am your bride." — From For Poets that I Love, a poem that I wrote.
As Albert Camus said, "To create is to live twice."
As T.S. Eliot said, "The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink."
As Diana Ferrus said, “The truth I want to highlight is that we are all human beings first, and we should strive to make that truth visible."
As a female poet, I write my truth to power. I serve God, first, then my poems are my service to humanity, second and, thirdly, I confront my humanity, reaching for humility, displaying a gentle strength in the face of adversity, and what is beyond my control.
“Poems Rethabile Likes” is a gift for poets and readers alike, and if you read poems, you should be reading philosophy too, I think, especially Carl Jung. You should be reading everything. Education is a poetric journey.
Endeavors to emulate the goddamn feeling we were obliged to experience and live through.