Feast

by Edna St. Vincent Millay — a poem card from Justes Mots

A paradoxical celebration of unfulfilled desire and want as superior to satiation, suggesting that the yearning itself holds more spiritual value than possession. Millay inverts conventional wisdom by embracing hunger and thirst as states of nobility and completeness. The poem reflects a philosophical stance that meaning and beauty reside in longing rather than achievement, inviting personal meditation on desire and contentment.

I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.
I gnawed at every root.
I ate of every plant.
I came upon no fruit
So wonderful as want.…

Themes: love · new-baby · wedding · friendship