The poem “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” was written just five years after the First World War when innumerable young men died. The poetess is in her early 30’s and she is not regretting the past, she is as a matter of fact regretting, that her young age has passed. Deep under her heart, holds aching memories of the past and is deeply longing for her youth. The poetess also speaks of the numerous love affairs which have come to an end because of the death of the soldiers in the First World War.
Loss and change are the two major themes around which the poem centers around. Though the theme of loss is prevalent in the whole poem it is more visible in the last few lines of the poem. The poetess is in fact portraying the matter from the point of view of all the individuals who have lost their loved ones in the First World War.
A woman is described in the poem that has lost someone she loved and is now left with her physical gestures her lips and her arms. Her lips and her arms are the disembodied symbols which needs no explanation so as to whom they belonged to. She is like a lonely tree standing in the chilly winter streets because the most beautiful birds in her branches are lost. She has lost the love of her life and her life is now meaningless. She is alive just by acknowledging the connection with the soul of her loved one in his absence also.
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Millay has used metaphors throughout the poem to explain her state of mind, just like the tree which is left alone in the winters because of the migration of birds to other places, she is also left alone in the bed without her lover; the tree is lonely and so is she. Millay shows the contrast in the form of two seasons, summer and winter, at times her heart is filled with happiness and joy which is similar to the joys of summers and there are times when she cannot come out of the memories of the past as a result of which her heart becomes filled pain which is similar to the silence of chilly winter days.
This silence can only come to an end when summer arrives but Millay is sad that this summer will not arrive in her life. She feels that summer actually stood in her when she was content and happy but today summer sings no more in her because her heart is empty and nobody except the one she loved can fill that space. Since that person is dead all her joys have come to an end. When a person reads this beautiful sonnet he or she will surely remember their loved ones who have left them.