Memorial to D. C. — Summary

Millay speaks directly to someone she has loved and lost, praising the “loveliest throat of all sweet throats” where music no longer exists. The image suggests a beautiful voice—perhaps in song or speech—now permanently silenced. The most moving shift comes when she says the hands that once wrote “little notes” to this person now write “little elegies.” The change from daily affection to mourning is gentle but devastating. Repeating the word “little” keeps the grief intimate and unheroic, rooted in small, personal gestures rather than grand declarations. The mood is tender and restrained: not loud sorrow, but a quiet, almost domestic act of remembering. It reads like a whispered farewell and a way of staying close to someone whose voice can no longer answer.