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TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE “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.” Enda St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950) The poem reflects the intensity of the Roaring Twenties, and the degree that it could not and did not last. Nobody knew at the time but 1929 loomed; not as a bright light but as a year that would extinguish any heat that the decade still contained. In the second stanza of the poem, 'but ah my foes' refers to the conservationists in the bible belt of America who wanted to protect the conservative social and religious morals that had controlled life to that point. Vincent Millay's comment 'Oh my friends… it gives a lovely light.' relates to the young generation of the decade. This brief poem of four lines captures a social paradox that observes the heights of decadence and in contrast, knowing that the light would eventually go out. And it did, on 24th October 1929. No decade in American history burnt as 'brightly' as that of 1920’s. This era was magical in that it transformed a society that was basically conservative, locked into its (white) traditions, and an apartheid culture. As 1920 came around, America was still g