The poem is a narrative, giving a close encounter of how life has been in her sphere. Millay narrates how she wasted out her love after an encounter with numerous lovers. Though a change occurs in the poem where Millay applies comparative image in expressing her personal feelings of love loss. Millay indicates” I cannot say what love have come and gone”, this indicates that never loved her young lover men by enjoyed with them. She has lost all the lovers since she changed from one lover to another. From the line, it’s clear that she feels a lot of loss after looking back at the youthful years. The differences between the sestet and the octave are that Millay compares and contrast her vanished lovers to ghost in the sonnet octave. Furthermore, the sestet outlines the loss and wastage of time in her life as she moves from love to lover.
It’s evident that Millay build up a character to voice the lines in the sonnet. The first line in the poem clearly summarizes and analyses the subject matter in the poem. From the line it’s reflective of how Millay kissed her lovers, it shows her love on the physical contact with the lovers. Though she indicated that Millay has forgotten all the personalities and faces of the lovers. She adds that she has forgotten all the locations and sites she has ever been with her lovers. In her second and third lines, ‘what hands have lain under my body till morning,' the poet pictures and gives and imagery of how the young men embraced and hold her tight in their arms all night. In the line, the word till morning indicates how careless she was as it was all a one night stand. No line indicates any impression of a working relationship developed with the lovers.
The fourth and fifth line are used by the poet to show imagery of how line drops noise indicates her lovers are calling her through her window. In the lines, the word phrase ghost indicates the memories she had with the lovers. The poet applies the dramatic way of recalling her lovers. Millay feels guilty for breaking her lover’s hearts, indicating that herself she feels a loss since she lost all love opportunities.
In the sestet, Millay feels that her age has grown old. Currently, she has no passion of love from her youth. She describes that her current age can never attract any other lover. She indicates that ’come and gone.' She compares herself with a lonely tree that has no attraction for songbirds during the summer in line nine, ten and eleven. In the lines, songbirds represent her young lovers. Furthermore, line twelve repeatedly indicates that she can never remember her young lovers individually. Lastly, in the thirteenth and fourteenth line, she contrasts her joyful youth years with summertime full of melodies. In her fourteenth line, the poet indicates that her joy and happiness in her previous years has evaded.
In the poem, the poet have applied several sound effects such as alliteration that is the repetition of the first letters. For instance, in the ‘what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.' There is a repetition of w’s and I’s. Furthermore, we have the assonance that is the repetition of vowels, Note the 6 ‘a’ sound repeated in the following line, ‘I have forgotten, and what arms have lain,' Note the ‘o’ sound in the two final lines of the sonnet. ”I only know that the summer hit and sang in me”, A while, that in me sings no more”. Lastly, the sonnet has rhyming and cross rhyme; this is evident in the repeat of the word know in the sestet. In conclusion, the sonnet has a musical rhythm repeating throughout the poem. The overall poem feels more of a personal story, emotionally and passionately addressed to the readers concerned.
References
R.S GWYNN. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Print.
