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.