“I, being born a woman and distressed”
“I, being born a woman and distressed” implies that distress is unswervingly interconnected with femaleness. Edna St. Vincent Millay elucidates, “ I , being born a woman and distressed/By all the needs and notions of my kind.” The overloads that society inflicts on women underwrite to their anguish. Being born female is a bidding to bear the encumbrances of womanhood. Predetermined philosophies concerning womanhood pressure all women to submit to the anticipation of the guidelines that are underscored by orthodox philosophies of gender.
“Ashes of Life”
The ashes are metaphorical of the outlooks of insignificance that typify a heartbreak. Edna St. Vincent elucidates: “ 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 wake and hear the slow hours strike!” Evidently, the speaker is dealing with the aftermaths of a love that has expired. The love must have burned feverishly, to yield the ashes which the speaker is dealing with, so that the ashes signal the scenario of a disconsolate woman who does not relish the enchantments of existence because love is what had invigorated her previously.
