To S. M.

To S. M. by Edna St. Vincent Millay

(If He Should Lie A-dying)

I am not willing you should go
Into the earth, where Helen went;
She is awake by now, I know.
Where Cleopatra's anklets rust
You will not lie with my consent;
And Sappho is a roving dust;
Cressid could love again; Dido,
Rotted in state, is restless still:
You leave me much against my will.

_Notes

_{The poem is addressed to Scuddle Middleton, a poet with whom Millay shared a brief romance; there is no mention of him beyond this.}

_Source

1. _{What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Daniel Mark Epstein (2001)}

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