Burning the Candle at Both Ends After the Midnight Oil Has Burned Out

 

“I have been burning my desolate candle on both ends,” my friend said. “Sadly, I get more time to do things I have no interest in doing.”

“But you get more warmth?” I teased him.

… I knew that that idiom had become popular by an American poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, in a poem she wrote more than a century ago. But being a multilingual writer, I am always curious to explore the origin of words and sayings.

So, I searched for the possible origins of the idiom.

First, here is the poem, published in 1920, titled “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!

 

Since the poem’s publication, “burning the candle at both ends” has been used to explain, interpret and even insinuate various behaviors of folks around the globe. Often it means working long hours, into late at night, and to take care of the burden of jobs, responsibilities, or challenges in general.  It is used when describing an unhealthy behavior, with implications of taking the joie de vivre out of the days and shortening life. Yet, it is also seen as being in the moment and enjoying the pleasures with intensity. For those who interpret the idiom as life or the moment being a candle, the quality of the moment means using the candle to its fullest is what counts. Not the years of life that may result from burning only one end of it. Quality vs. quantity, of sorts.

And finally, burning the candle at both ends is also used to describe infidelity in a relationship. Hmm, truly an idiom is figurative and allows the user to go beyond the literal meaning of the words.

My next question was if Millay had formulated that idiom, or she immortalized that statement through her poem. My search for origins was most rewarding – that statement, used as an idiom or a metaphor, goes back to the 1600s first written in Old French then in Middle English!

Indeed, the metaphor seems to have originated in France with a similar meaning, as cited the Randle Cotgrave Dictionnary, published in 1611. Cotgrave was a lexicographer and his bilingual dictionary was titled “A Dictionnarie of the French and English Tongues.” In the Dictionnarie, he mentions the French phrase "brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts" which exactly translates to "to burn the candle at both ends," although it originally described extravagant and careless folks.

 

As for the metaphor’s use in High English, it seems that in 1603, a famous English clergyman in Worcester, author and translator Richard Eedes wrote, "He burneth the candle at both ends" when referring to someone who was keen on overworking.

Interestingly, Eedes was nominated as one of the translators for the Authorised King James Version of the Bible, in the Second Oxford Company. There is a monument to Richard Eedes in the Worcester Cathedral, England.

Ok, so Eedes used that sentence perhaps as a metaphor but Millay transformed it into an idiom that goes beyond describing overworking folks to encompass lost time to enjoying life (by dedicating their lives to work) and also adversely affecting their health in the process.

 

Next, I could not resist the temptation of linking two idioms together. I think most people would immediately see the resemblance between these two commonly used sentences:

Burning the candle at both ends

                       And

Burning the midnight oil.

 

On I went searching for the origin of the second sentence, and this was much more interesting!

The first known use of the term midnight oil to mean “late night work” comes from “Emblems” a book written by Francis Quarles in 1635:

Wee spend our mid-day sweat, or mid-night oyle; Wee tyre the night in thought; the day in toyle

(The word toyle, a noun meaning strife, could be found in Shakespeare’s works, as it is Middle English. Since then, it is written as toil, meaning hard work.)

 

But my intrigued curiosity was not done yet as I wondered if Millay had also written about the midnight oil. And to my great surprise and delight, she had!

 

Midnight Oil

Cut if you will, with Sleep's dull knife,
Each day to half its length, my friend,—
The years that Time take off my life,
He'll take from off the other end!

 

In this poem, Millay goes beyond the poetic tournure of celebrating burning her candle at both ends to realise that even if we cut our days in half (or perhaps cut our work days in half?) there is no escape from mortality through longevity. So, is it worth not enjoying the days we have, in full?

 

… I do not know much how Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in Maine, lived her life, but she died at the age of 58 (1892 -1950). Given the symbolism and philosophy of her two poems on how to enjoy life without pursuing longevity, it seems to me that she often burned her candle at both ends, and that she was not shy to burn the midnight oil. And that makes her poetry genuine and a reflection of a life well lived.

 

About the Photos: Both were taken in Taipei, Taiwan, as my healthcare profession took me there for more than a decade. The first one is one of many I took on medium format film of people in temples. I chose this one as the candles have that "imperfect human" posture compared to the perfectly straight hand carved wood pillars that often kept the burned incense aroma through the passage of time.

The second photo somehow reminds me of bookends – the two dogs made me think of bookends that hold books and manuscripts orderly and protected. When I was writing this essay about candles and “both ends” I immediately though about this photo.

Needless to say that one of the dogs noticed my 1971 Minolta Autocord, and as a wise dog guarding a temple, he smiled at me, as if to tell me the books they hold were about enlightment while living the moment of the present.

 

 

May 3, 2025

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025