'If I should learn, in some quite casual way' by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poetry

If I should learn, in some quite casual way

*Sonnet V from Renascence and Other Poems* by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917)**

If I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again— Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man—who happened to be you— At noon to-day had happened to be killed, I should not cry aloud—I could not cry Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place— I should but watch the station lights rush by With a more careful interest on my face, Or raise my eyes and read with greater care Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.