What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Full Text

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.

Overview

A woman cataloging forgotten lovers—radical for 1920. Millay reverses the usual script: she's the one who loved and moved on, who can't quite remember the men. But there's loss here too. The "unremembered lads" are ghosts in the rain; summer "sings no more." It's both defiant and elegiac—she owned her desire, and now mourns its fading.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-4

"What lips... and where, and why, / I have forgotten"—casual about forgetting lovers. But rain is "full of ghosts" that "tap and sigh"—memory returns unbidden.

Lines 5-8

The ghosts "listen for reply" they won't get. "Unremembered lads" is casually devastating—they're not even distinct enough to name. They won't return "with a cry"—desire is past.

Lines 9-11

The tree metaphor: it doesn't know which birds left, only that branches are "more silent." Loss without specific memory.

Lines 12-14

"Summer sang in me / A little while"—youth and desire as a season. "In me sings no more"—not regret for the lovers, but for her own capacity to feel that intensely.

Themes

• Memory and forgetting
• Female desire
• The loss of youth
• Love as season

Literary Devices

Petrarchan sonnet

Octave/sestet structure — The traditional love sonnet form, subverted by a woman speaker with many lovers.

Extended metaphor

Tree with vanished birds — The sestet shifts from human memory to natural image—loss without itemization.

Personification

Rain full of ghosts, summer singing — Memory and desire become external forces visiting her.

Historical Context

Millay was openly bisexual in an era when women's desire was barely acknowledged. This sonnet shocked readers by presenting a woman who had many lovers and couldn't quite remember them—a male poetic pose, claimed by a woman.