| Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917. |
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| 21. “Not in this chamber only at my birth” |
| | | Sonnet IV |
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| 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; | 5 |
| 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. | |
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| So is no warmth for me at any fire | |
| To-day, when the world’s fire has burned so low; | 10 |
| 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. | |
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