Shall I despise you that your colourless tears
Made rainbows in your lashes, and you forgot to
weep?
Would we were half so wise, that eke a grief out
By sitting in the dark, until we fell asleep.

I only fear lest, being by nature sunny,
By and by you will weep no more at all,
And fall asleep in the light, having lost with the
tears
The colour in the lashes that comes as the tears fall.

I would not have you darken your lids with weep-
ing,
Beautiful eyed, but I would have you weep enough
To wet the fingers of the hand held over the eye-lids,
And stain a little the light frock’s delicate stuff.

For there came into my mind, as I watched you
winking the tears down,
Laughing faces, blown from the west and the east,
Faces lovely and proud that I have prized and
cherished;
Nor were the loveliest among them those that had
wept the least.”

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, what felt so to me like
her voice in remark.