A Celebration of Women Writers

"The Philosopher" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
From Millay, Edna St. Vincent. A Few Figs From Thistles   New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922. p. 34.

[Page 34] 

THE PHILOSOPHER

AND what are you that, missing you,
  I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
  With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,
  As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
  And looking at the wall?

I know a man that's a braver man
  And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
  The one man in my mind?

Yet women's ways are witless ways,
  As any sage will tell,–
And what am I, that I should love
  So wisely and so well?

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Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom