When I Too Long Have Looked Upon Your Face Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

When I Too Long Have Looked Upon Your Face

Rating: 3.3


When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Colleen Courtney 17 May 2014

Amazes me how well Millay can put into words all the ways love muddles the heart and the mind. Truly a great poet!

4 0 Reply
Nabakishore Dash 02 September 2021

Lovely poem, beautifully crafted.

2 0 Reply
Nicholas 09 December 2020

Touched divine, and in doing so everything else feels drab.

3 0 Reply
Charles 13 August 2020

Yes, because he will be so old that his mind is slipping away.

0 0 Reply
Gilberto 04 August 2019

The last few lines point to a declining mind, it seems to me, after days of brightness and light.

0 0 Reply
Elizabeth Padillo Olesen 28 October 2015

Passionate and elegant, dear Edna. Thanks for sharing.

2 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Rockland / Maine / United States
Close
Error Success