The Shroud
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine, O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other.
(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.
I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine, O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other.
Credit
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 15, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“The Shroud” was published in The New Poetry: An Anthology (Macmillan, 1917).
Author
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. A poet and playwright poetry collections include The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (Flying Cloud Press, 1922), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Renascence and Other Poems (Harper, 1917) She died on October 18, 1950, in Austerlitz, New York.
Date Published
09/15/2018