Collected Poems
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Since I was 13 years old and was taught a poem called "God's World," I have read and loved Millay's poetry. She was a devotee of Shakespeare, and his influence is everywhere in her work. I know all her sonnets by heart, since I read them so assiduously when I was young and always in love with whoever wouldn't love me back. Now that I am older and have read Shakespeare, I hear the echoes between his poetry and lines I loved in Millay. She didn't copy him. She was deeply influenced by him, which is a glorious thing for a reader to discover, like knowing that two friends knew each other in another world.