Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical 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 and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, “She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century.”
- And You as Well Must Die, Beloved Dust
- And you as well must die, beloved dust,
- And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
- This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
- This body of flame and steel, before the gust
- Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
- Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
- Than the first leaf that fell,—this wonder fled.
- Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.
- Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
- In spite of all my love, you will arise
- Upon that day and wander down the air
- Obscurely as the unattended flower,
- It mattering not how beautiful you were,
- Or how beloved above all else that dies.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
