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Edna St. Vincent Millay - Alms
Work rating: Medium

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, 
And 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 the 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.
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