The Betrothal

By Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892–1950

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,

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,

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

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.

Biography

Throughout much of her career, Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most successful and respected poets in America. She is noted for both her dramatic works, including Aria da capo, The Lamp and the Bell, and the libretto composed for an opera, The King’s Henchman, and for such lyric verses as “Renascence” and the poems found in the collections A Few Figs From Thistles, Second April, and The Ballad of the . . .

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