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 can not 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 pain 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 well may 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 can not 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 pain 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 well may be. I do not think I would.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
image from youtube.com
Love is Not All is my favorite Edna St. Vincent Millay poem . I think, as far as sonnets go, she really gives Shakespeare a run for his money here. And, here's the bonus song lyrics. This is Snow Patrol's Crack the Shutters from their album, A Hundred Million Suns. I swear that I fell in love with my husband to this song at a Snow Patrol concert when we first started seeing each other.
"Crack The Shutters"
You cool your bedwarm hands down
On the broken radiator
When you lay them freezing on me
I mumble can you wake me later
But I don't really want you to stop
And you know it so it doesn't stop you
You run your hands from my neck
To my chest
[Chorus:]
Crack the shutters open wide
I want to bathe you in the light of day
And just watch you as the rays
Tangle up around your face and body
I could sit here for hours
Finding new ways to be awed each minute
'Cause the daylight seems to want you
Just as much as I want you
Its been minutes, it's been days,
It's been all I will remember
Happy lost in your hair
And the cold side of the pillow
Your hills and valleys
Are mapped by my intrepid fingers
And in a naked slumber
I dream all this again
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