Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet 128

I, too, beneath your moon, almighty Sex,
Go forth at nightfall crying like a cat,
Leaving the ivory tower I laboured at
For birds to foul and boys and girls to vex
With tittering chalk; and you, and the long necks
Of neighbors sitting where their mothers sat
Are well aware of shadowy this and that
In me, that's neither noble nor complex.

Such as I am, however, I have brought
To what it is, this tower; it is my own.
Though it is reared To Beauty, it is wrought
From what I had to build with: honest bone
Is there, and anguish; pride; and burning thought;
And lust is there, and nights not spent alone.

   

This work is in the Public Domain.