Metered Monday

I told you my taste in poetry was mainstream. But there's a reason why a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay is conventional. (I discovered her in tenth grade. Unfortunately, a friend beat me and got Millay for her project subject. I had to choose a different poet.)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
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.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay