If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way

Edna St. Vincent Millay

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
  That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
  Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
  And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
  At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
  Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
  With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

Next 10 Poems

• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Indifference
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Inland
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Interim
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Into The Golden Vessel Of Great Song
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Journey
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Kin To Sorrow
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Lament
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Low-tide
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Macdougal Street

Previous 10 Poems

• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Grown-up
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : God's World
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Four Sonnets: 04 ( I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear )
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Four Sonnets: 03 ( Oh, Think Not I Am Faithful To A Vow! )
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Four Sonnets: 02 ( I Think I Should Have Loved You Presently )
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Four Sonnets: 01 ( Love, Though For This You Riddle Me With Darts )
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : First Fig
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Exiled
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Epitaph
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Elegy Before Death