Uploaded September 2012 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
In the twenties, what you could say about sex in print was restricted. Nevertheless this is a clever sexy poem. The euphemisms and innuendos are well selected. "I would have loved you" means "I would have had sex with you" because it refers to a decision and an event. My feeling is that it was written to a woman - probably Charlotte Babcock.
sappho.com/poetry/e_millay.html
And she desribes the act vividly "all my pretty follies flung aside... beneath your gaze, naked of reticence and shorn of pride, spread like a chart my little wicked ways..." leaves no doubt that she was about to offer the ultimate kind of female hospitality.
Edna's is piqued that her potential lover has given up when she was about to submit. Behind the noble message the subtext is "you quit too soon, now think about what you missed".
Head of a woman by François Boucher, ca. 1750
Femme nue couchee by Gustave Courbet, 1862
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
In the twenties, what you could say about sex in print was restricted. Nevertheless this is a clever sexy poem. The euphemisms and innuendos are well selected. "I would have loved you" means "I would have had sex with you" because it refers to a decision and an event. My feeling is that it was written to a woman - probably Charlotte Babcock.
sappho.com/poetry/e_millay.html
And she desribes the act vividly "all my pretty follies flung aside... beneath your gaze, naked of reticence and shorn of pride, spread like a chart my little wicked ways..." leaves no doubt that she was about to offer the ultimate kind of female hospitality.
Edna's is piqued that her potential lover has given up when she was about to submit. Behind the noble message the subtext is "you quit too soon, now think about what you missed".
Head of a woman by François Boucher, ca. 1750
Femme nue couchee by Gustave Courbet, 1862
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
