Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not in this chamber only at my birth—
  When the long hours of that mysterious night
  Were over, and the morning was in sight—
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
  And never shall one room contain me quite
  Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.

So is no warmth for me at any fire
  To-day, when the world’s fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
  To gather up my little gods and go.

Next 10 Poems

• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Not With Libations, But With Shouts And Laughter
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Ode To Silence
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Oh, My Beloved, Have You Thought Of This
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Once More Into My Arid Days Like Dew
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Passer Mortuus Est
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Pastoral
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Portrait By A Neighbor
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Prayer To Persephone
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Recuerdo

Previous 10 Poems

• Edna St. Vincent Millay : No Rose That In A Garden Ever Grew
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Mindful Of You The Sodden Earth In Spring
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Midnight Oil
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Memorial To D. C.
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Mariposa
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Macdougal Street
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Low-tide
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Lament
• Edna St. Vincent Millay : Kin To Sorrow