Sunday Poetry - Edna St Vincent Millay

Another sonnet from Millay's first collection, Renascence and other poems. I love the way we're just dropped into a situation, one of those imaginings that we all have (if we're the worrying sort) about a loved one. It reminds me of the scene in Waterloo Bridge, where Myra (Vivien Leigh) sees the newspaper report of Roy's death while she's waiting to meet his mother in a teashop & has to try to look as though nothing is wrong. I must watch that movie again, it's one of my favourites.

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,   
    That you were gone, not to return again—   
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,   
    Held by a neighbor in a subway train,   
How at the corner of this avenue           
    And such a street (so are the papers filled)   
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—   
    At noon to-day had happened to be killed,   
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry   
    Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—           
I should but watch the station lights rush by   
    With a more careful interest on my face,   
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care   
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.