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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet 6

Bluebeard

This door you might not open, and you did;

So enter now, and see for what slight thing

You are betrayed.   . . . Here is no treasure hid,

No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring

The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain

For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,

But only what you see.   . . . Look yet again:

An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.

Yet this alone out of my life I kept

Unto myself, lest any know me quite;

And you did so profane me when you crept

Unto the threshold of this room tonight

That I must never more behold your face.

This now is yours. I seek another place.