Women have loved before

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

　　

---

Women have loved before as I love now;At least, in lively chronicles of the past—Of Irish waters by a Cornish prowOr Trojan waters by a Spartan mastMuch to their cost invaded—here and there,Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,I find some woman bearing as I bearLove like a burning city in the breast.I think however that of all aliveI only in such utter, ancient wayDo suffer love; in me alone surviveThe unregenerate passions of a dayWhen treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,Heedless and wilful, took their knights to bed.

---