My mother would have been 79 today. She always told us she wouldn’t make it to 80 and we always told her she was being silly. I guess she got the last laugh.
This poem always reminded me of her. Don’t take it literally; Millay was referring to the Greek version of “hell,” not the Christian one.
Prayer to Persephone
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee:
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
