Edna St. Vincent Millay gives us a warm, funny sketch of a woman who lives entirely by her own rules. She sunbathes before sweeping, stays out past midnight, sleeps in, and tends her garden with odd tools by moonlight. The speaker watches her with clear affection and mild amusement rather than judgment.
The details are playful but tender: she walks like someone half-asleep, returns borrowed butter as cream, and lets her lawn grow wild with clover and Queen Anne’s lace. The mood is light, cozy, and a little whimsical. Millay seems charmed by this neighbor’s dreamy impracticality, and the poem quietly celebrates choosing ease and wildness over a rigid, tidy life.