Sunday, February 15, 2009

A favorite poem of mine with which to start your week...

I memorized this poem a long time ago, and have found it to apply in my life more often than I'd like...but the ending always makes me chuckle.

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

2 comments:

Elizabeth Downie said...

"Maybe this isn't the place to mention it, but another thorn in my side was the Poetry Pageant in Sedgely. I knew exactly where that one went wrong, and I righted it. When I began getting complaints from tourists that the poetry didn't sound like poetry, it sounded like newspaper articles, I went out to Sedgely. I could not believe what I found. Most of the 'poems' they had been foisting on the crowds were indeed prose. I showed the incriminating evidence to the Poetry Pageant president and he said those were prose poems. That's what he said, prose poems. I laughed in his face and informed him that poetry rhymed and had lines of a certain length and went da-dum, da-dum, de-de-da, da-dum, and so forth, and anybody with a third grad education knew that."

- M. Sam Johnson (p. 101 in H.T.T.M.)

Thought you would enjoy that. ;)

Brian said...

Speaking of poetry, I'm glad you got the Outsiders reference in my icicle post.