"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”

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 a lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet know 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


In the poem "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed," the speaker feels particularly alone as a rainstorm pounds on her windows. She painfully recalls the company and love of men, whom she once had with her during these nights, that will never again come for her. Although she cannot remember each individual man, she misses the companionship and love all the same.

The speaker goes on to compare her loneliness to a tree, who does not know how many or which birds have come and gone, like the speaker and her men, but the tree is still alone all the same. She continues this to mark how summer once encompassed her, but now she has become like a tree in the winter: alone and lifeless.The saddened tone help to mark the overall emotion that stands out in the poem, that of hopelessness and abandonment.

Personally, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" may just be my favorite Millay poem. I just love the metaphor she draws between her own loneliness and the that of a tree, barren and bereft in the wintertime. Also, one of my favorite, most loved lines of all time appear here:

"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" (lines 12-14)

I think Millay is so perfect at capturing emotion, whether it is wonder in "First Fig," or elation in "Recuerdo". Those last three lines of "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" hit the reader, so that they can truly understand the complete abandonment the speaker feels.