Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей

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.

When I was small, small,

The queer folk in the windows

Would smile at me and call.

And in the hard wee gardens

Such pleasant men would hoe:

“Sir, may we touch the little girl’s hair!”—

It was so red, you know.

They cut me coloured asters

With shears so sharp and neat,

They brought me grapes and plums and pears

And pretty cakes to eat.

And out of all the windows,

No matter where we went,

The merriest eyes would follow me

And make me compliment.

There were a thousand windows,

All latticed up and down.

And up to all the windows,

When we went back to town,

The queer folk put their faces,

As gentle as could be;

“Come again, little girl!” they called, and I

Called back, “You come see me!”