Ashes of Life

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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.


Monadnock Valley Press > Millay