Literature Network » Edna St. Vincent Millay » Renascence and Other Poems » Ashes of Life

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
  Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!
But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
  Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
  This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --
  There's little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,
  And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
  There's this little street and this little house.

Literature Network » Edna St. Vincent Millay » Renascence and Other Poems » Ashes of Life