What is the analysis of Edna St Vincent Millay Sonnet 29?

Answer 1

Sonnet 29 is a 14 lined poem written by Edna St Vincent Millay. Sonnet 29 is one of the Sonnets from Sonnets of the Portuguese. Edna St Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet. She was born in 1892 and died in 1950. Sonnet 29 is basically about how the person she loves doesn't love her anymore and how he shouldn't pity her except that he doesn't love her.

Pity me not because the light of day

At close of day no longer walks the sky;

Pity me not for beauties passed away

From field to thicket as the year goes by;

Pity me not the waning of the moon,

Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea.

These 5 lines are about how she is telling 'him' the guy she loves that he should not pity her. That even when she is going through some hard times he should not pity her. This to me shows how much she loves him because even though he doesn't love her she still wants him to be happy in the sense that he won't feel bad.

Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon.

And you no longer look with love on me.

Here she is saying even again that she will still love him even if he doesn't. these 2 lines also tells the reader that she loves him.

This have I known always: Love is no more

Than the wide blossom which the wind assails.

Here to me she is saying that her love is gone meaning him. I think this because to me by saying the blossom which the wind assails means that her love is gone.

Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore.

Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:

Pity me that the heart is slow to learn

When the swift mind beholds at every turn.

These last 4 lines are the highlight of the poem. They are the most dramatic and meaningful. The first two lines she again shows how much she loves him but then in the last two lines she shows that she is angry and upset that he left her or no longer loves her. She is showing this by saying that he should pity her. There is this effect because in the beginning of the poem she is explaining how he shouldn't pity her but know she just wants him to feel her sorrow and agony.