Millay

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 tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
There's this little street and this little house.

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.