'Time does not bring relief; you all have lied' by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poetry

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

*Sonnet II from Renascence and Other Poems* by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917)**

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him!