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Ebb

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know what my heart is like
      Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
      Left there by the tide,
      A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

Poet Bio

A charming snapshot of Edna St. Vincent Millay, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Best Volume of Verse in 1922. (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)

Born in Rockland, Maine, Edna St. Vincent Millay as a teenager entered a national poetry contest sponsored by The Lyric Year magazine; her poem “Renascence” won fourth place and led to a scholarship at Vassar College. Millay was as famous during her lifetime for her red-haired beauty, unconventional lifestyle, and outspoken politics as for her poetry. Yet her passionate, formal lyrics are cherished by many readers today, years after her death.

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