Regrets of Summer Nights

Everyone has something that they have done in the past that they regret doing or wish they could take it back. I believe that is what Edna St. Vincent Millay is trying to prove in her sonnet poem What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why. Millay seems to reveal, in this one stanza sonnet poem, various emotions of happiness in her younger years as well as sadness. It feels as though she is trying to warn us about young love and one night stands with strange lovers you may meet.

It is almost as if she is mentoring the younger generation the vices of having too much fun through her poem. In reading her poem, I notice that she uses nature’s beauty to reflect on her emotions of pain, sadness, and loneliness. This poem stands out to me because I want to know why she feels this way and why she never decides to be with one lover.

In this sonnet poem, Millay divides it into two parts with an octave and sestet which I, the audience, find her feelings in both parts similar. In the first eight lines of the stanza, she seems to dwell on her past as she wasted her chance with finding love by changing lover after lover. The opening verse, “What lips my lips have kissed” and the fourth verse, “Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh” right away symbolizes her lost lovers and the memories she had with them.

These quotes clearly bring imagery to the audience that she loves the physical contact and desires young men with their company. She admits that she has been with many lovers moving from one to another forgetfully. However, these two lines also reveal as though Millay feels guilty for breaking their hearts (Skool, 2008).

Millay did, however, change the imagery by comparing her lost lovers as ghosts in the octave to nature’s beauty of summer birds in the sestet. In the third to last verse in the sestet, “I cannot say what loves have come and gone” reveals that she cannot remember her lovers’ names and rather enjoyed their company than their actual love.

However, when reading the entire sestet as a whole, it sends a completely different message of loneliness to even self hate of her stupidity in her youth.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,                     Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:                               I cannot say what loves have come and gone,           I only know that summer sang in me                                    A little while, that in me sings no more.               

She begins with a metaphor, “Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree”, describing herself as a tree and being alone in her ‘later years’ with the seasonal change of summer to winter. She describes her lovers disappearing one after another in the line, “Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one.” The most intriguing part of the sestet is in the last two lines of the stanza. She compares her fun, carefree side of life during the summer time, not caring about the strange men she sleeps with, to the upmost regret as her heart pains because her years of loving are gone and she is now alone.

This agreed with the interpretation of Skool as they state she is joyful during the brief time then in regret when ‘winter’ comes (later years) (Skool, 2008). This seems to reveal her chance to mentor the audience from being young and stupid by missing the opportunity to find their one true love because being young is only temporary.   

I believe at the end of Millay’s poem that she has this pain of loneliness and sadness in her heart because she has missed her chance to find that one true love. “In my heart there stirs a quiet pain”, even though this verse is in the octave it foreshadows her feelings of growing too old and cannot experience her passionate love of her youth. Maybe she feels this way because she cannot attract young men any more like she could in her youth.

Another thought that came to mind is, maybe she is a woman that loves the challenge of picking up strange young men and once the challenge is over she moves on to the next. It may have been fun for the time being, but before she knew, it was too late to fix the damage and find her one true love.

In my research, I came across a website that agreed with this statement by stating that perhaps she is a femme fatale type which is a woman who wins the hearts of men then cut them off and move on to the next conquest (Skool, 2008). These types of women view it as a game or challenge to play, which is to find young men, sometimes out of their league, to go home with but then never see them again because they won the game or challenge. Once they win this estrange game, these women move on to the next set of prey or challengers.   

Overall, I believe Millay’s poem provides many lessons for young viewers who like to have fun and party. She describes her experiences as a young woman who had fun with one night stands and never really letting her guard down to fall in love. I feel as though she warns or mentors us from having too much fun and not knowing when to settle down with someone you love.

Millay’s poem speaks great volume in foreshadowing what one’s life will be if they party too much and not grow into an adult. She does not want us to follow her path with having fun during the ‘summer’ or youth years and suffer when ‘winter’ comes or later years of one’s life.

I really enjoyed reading Millay’s poem because she uses great imagery referring to nature’s beauty in describing her emotions of sadness and loneliness as well as to describe her lost lovers. I felt as if she was talking to me personally to enjoy my younger years but know when to settle down with someone I love and start a family. The message was clear for me that she does not want me to feel the pain or suffering in being alone.

What do you think her message was? Or her main focus of the poem? Do you think she used great imagery to describe her experiences of being young? Why or why not?

Work Cited

Gwynn, R. S. "Poetry." Literature: A Pocket Anthology. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 615. Print.

"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed." Skoool.ie :: Exam Centre. Intel Corporation, 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.