Sonnet 29

Khaleb Cofie & Andre Ababio

Introduction
 Sonnet 29
Edna St Vincent Millay
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 and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man’s desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
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
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
 Lines 1-4
The poem opens with the word "When," and a quick survey of the poem reveals that
sentence doesn't end for a long time—indeed, the only period in the poem comes at the end
of line 14. The poem is an extended, single sentence, which can be divided in two: a
conditional clause and a main clause. The conditional clause lists a series of circumstances
and the main clause then explains what happens in those circumstances. The word "When"
in the first line of the poem introduces the conditional clause, and the next four lines reveal
what that "when" consists of. In other words, these four lines describe a situation: a situation
of considerable despair and despondency for the speaker of the poem.
● Sonnet 29 like many other sonnets is about love;
although it follows the Shakespearean format, in
contrast to Shakespeare’s it does not celebrate love,
rather it mourns it.
● The poem encompasses the idea of fragile love and the
seemingly certain heartbreak that is bound to follow it
by comparing it to the cyclical forces of nature.
● Today we will explore in detail what the poem divulges
about love and it’s nature
Analysis
 The Octet
● The first eight lines of the poem is made up of two
quatrains. Throughout the poem, the poet compares love
to nature, which begins in the first quatrain.
● The speaker focuses on the cycle of life, the natural
movement of the sun, the moon and the tides while
making a request to her reader, who may also be her
former lover, not to pity her.
● She writes, “Pity me not…” repeatedly, following it with
a natural cycle. Each of the cycles are an extended
metaphor and serve to represent various things.
 Lines 1-4
● The poet accepts that these things come and go and says,
“pity me not…”. in an emphatic tone, shown by her use of
repetition.
● The continuation, “…because the light of day at close of day no
longer walks the sky…” suggests that pity is not necessary
simply because of a sunset, an everyday phenomenon, but
there is a veiled meaning behind her words.
● It can be gleaned that she is also asking that she not be pitied
because the light of love has also been extinguished. Her use of
personification when she says “... no longer walks…” is a strong
indication that she is referencing a person.
 Lines 1-4
● Lines three and four continues using the extended metaphor,
entreating that she should not be pitied because beauty fades.
This is true, as people age their beauty is said to be
diminished as well.
● It seems that there is quite a bit of euphemism in this quatrain
as well. The speaker uses phrases like, “no longer walks”
“passed away” and “goes by” which may be interpreted as a
softer way of indicating the death of something
● All the metaphors made, although they connect to nature they
also connect to unstoppable forces of nature
 Lines 5-8
● By the second quatrain, it is evident that Millay is utilizing repetition with
the phrase “Pity me not,” and just as she begins the first quatrain of her
poem, so begins the second.
● She writes, “Pity me not the waning of the moon,/Nor the ebbing tide goes
out to sea…”Again, she is asking that she should not be pitied because the
moon is not as bright or as big as it had been, just the like the love she and
her lover had experienced.
● In the next two lines, Millay shifts to speak directly to and about her lost
love. This is now where it becomes evident that the speaker is talking
directly to her former lover since she uses the pronoun “you.”
● She does not want her lover to pity her because of the desire and love her
partner once felt for her as fled, and she explicitly tells her lover not to pity
her for no longer loves her.
 The sestet
In the final section of the poem, Millay’s pessimism comes out in full force. This is
a very cynical way of looking at love. Millay claims she has always known that
love is a fragile and fleeting thing—it is like a delicate flower being beaten by the
wind; it is like the tide on the shore that must return back to the ocean; it is the
wreckage that appears after a strong wind: it will eventually be broken.
The final two lines form a couplet, and these two lines reflect a distinct change in
the poem. Up until this point, the speaker has been pleading not to be pitied;
however, now she is requesting that she be pitied for her heart not learning what
her mind has known all along: love will not stay. She writes, “Pity me that the
heart is slow to learn/What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”
 Lines 13-14

The final two lines form a couplet, and these two lines reflect a distinct change in
the poem. Up until this point, the speaker has been pleading not to be pitied;
however, now she is requesting that she be pitied for her heart not learning what
her mind has known all along: love will not stay. She writes, “Pity me that the
heart is slow to learn/What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”
Voice & Tone
While the tone throughout the poem is quite melancholic the
speaker also seems to be realistic when it comes to love, comparing
the cycles in nature to the cycle of romance.
There is a drastic change in tone from the octet to the sestet
which suggests an almost uncontrollable feeling of hurt. Millay
changes her mood from being quite somber at the beginning where
she asks the addressee not to feel sorry for her for what she
understood to be a natural process – but at the end, she reveals
her true emotions through her descriptions of wreckage.
The tone also shifts in the final couplet returning to its state of
melancholy which has a lasting effect on the reader
Themes
Love and relationships
Time
Nature, aging and cycles
Self perception
Ephemera
Grief and loss
Heartache/heartbreak
Structure
As is quite common in a sonnet, the first line of the poem also
doubles as the title of the poem. The work is a typical
Shakespearean sonnet, with fourteen lines, a set rhyme scene
(abab/cdcd/efef/gg) in three rhymed quatrains (stanza that are
four lines each), and the last two lines of the poem that form a
rhyming couplet . In addition, each line contains exactly ten
syllables of words. The poem also has an iambic pentameter
although it is broken in some places to create a sense of unease.
Conclusion
 The sonnet encapsulates the poet's view of love
from experience and the general damage it does.
The poem follows a slightly twisted beauty in a
sequence and does not stray from it, conclusively
delivering an exceedingly moving work of art.
 Thanks
For
Listening
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