Figs

I'm getting into it a little late, but it's National Poetry Month (wonder who makes these things up). I like poetry - or at least pretend to. The awful secondary school I went to put a stop to us elite pure-science students wasting time on stuff like literature, and that was that.

But enough of my life's sad story. Once in a while I do come across a poem that I miraculously "get" - it's a great feeling. One of them is Edna St. Vincent Millay's First Fig, a poem you've probably seen quoted everywhere. It turns out she wrote a Second Fig on the same theme:

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

I get the second one less than the first - but oh, the first! Once every few weeks my life becomes First Fig. Self-destructive, hedonistic, ridiculous, crazy, stupid? Yeah. But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, there's no pleasure like a guilty pleasure.


Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!