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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Betrothal

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

The Betrothal

By Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
 
(From The Harp-Weaver: and Other Poems, 1920)

OH, come, my lad, or go, my lad,
  And love me if you like.
I shall not hear the door shut
  Nor the knocker strike.
 
Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,        5
  And wed me if you will.
I’d make a man a good wife,
  Sensible and still.
 
And why should I be cold, my lad,
  And why should you repine,        10
Because I love a dark head
  That never will be mine?
 
I might as well be easing you
  As lie alone in bed
And waste the night in wanting        15
  A cruel dark head.
 
You might as well be calling yours
  What never will be his,
And one of us be happy.
  There’s few enough as is.        20