Portrait By A Neighbour

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Til past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
Any pays you back in cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 28, 2023

33 sec read
68

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABA XCXC ADXD CEBE XFXF
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 515
Words 107
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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    "Portrait By A Neighbour" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9417/portrait-by-a-neighbour>.

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