Edna St. Vincent Millay — 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 turn 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.