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.