Friday 26 October 2012

Poems I love (7)

I first read this poem in a 'Sweet Valley High' book (yes, I was a big fan). At the time I didn't really know anyone who had died - but I remembered it later in life. It isn't my typical choice - it doesn't have the meter and rhyme of the romantic poets, or the story - but the sentiment and feeling more than make up for that.

'Dirge without Music' by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.