Millay’s elegy is an intimate meditation on loss. The speaker addresses someone recently dead, imagining how their body—eyes, fingers, hair, flesh—will be absorbed by the earth and emerge again in weeds and flowers. That thought, she says, does not console her. Her grief centers on the voice: no river, wind, birdcall, or children’s footsteps can ever replace the particular beauty of the person’s speech. The body may return through natural cycles, blooming and seeding forever, but the voice and words are gone permanently. The closing image of a broken ivory box whose golden bird will sing no more makes that finality feel both tender and absolute. The mood is sorrowful and still, moving from physical decay to the sharper ache of realizing that what made the person present—the sound of them—cannot be restored.
Elegy — Summary
Let them bury your big eyes In the secret earth securely, Your thin fingers, and your fair, Soft, indefinite-colored hair,-- All of these in some way, surely, From the secret earth shall rise; Not for these I sit and stare, Broken and bereft completely; Your young flesh that sat so neatly On your little bones will sweetly Blossom in the air. But your voice,--never the rushing Of a river underground, Not the rising of the wind In the trees before the rain, Not the woodcock's watery call, Not the note the white-throat utters, Not the feet of children pushing Yellow leaves along the gutters In the blue and bitter fall, Shall content my musing mind For the beauty of that sound That in no new way at all Ever will be heard again. Sweetly through the sappy stalk Of the vigorous weed, Holding all it held before, Cherished by the faithful sun, On and on eternally Shall your altered fluid run, Bud and bloom and go to seed; But your singing days are done; But the music of your talk Never shall the chemistry Of the secret earth restore. All your lovely words are spoken. Once the ivory box is broken, Beats the golden bird no more.