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.