Lament

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Lament” first appeared in print in 1921 in her collection Second April (1921). The poem portrays a widow’s explanation to her children about their father’s death. The speaker does not seem in despair, and instead is trying to help her children come to terms with their father’s death. The poem examines both hidden and expressed grief. The poem also explores how society’s cliches and expectations about death may differ from an individual’s experience with the grieving process, loss, and death. The poem’s female perspective also plays into Millay’s reputation as a feminist poet. The speaker is now a widow, a single mother, who must provide not only for herself but also for her children. At the same time that the mother must support her children, she must also cope with the loss of her husband. The poem appeared in Collected Poems, which Millay’s sister, Norma, edited in 1956. Harper Perennial published the collection in 2011.

Poet Biography

Born on February 22, 1892 in Rockland, Maine to a nurse and a schoolteacher, Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up in a home riddled with conflict and domestic abuse. Her parents divorced when she was young, with her mother citing financial irresponsibility and domestic abuse as the grounds for divorce.