Alms

My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again
But it is winter with your love
The frost is thick upon the pane

I know a winter when it comes
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turned them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem
But it is winter with your love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small ill-natured sparrows' fray
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say.

I stood and watched him out of sight;
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step
My heart is what it was before.

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill
And close the window - and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay