ALMS
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y 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 watchedThe 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 doorAnd 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 birdsMay take or leave them, as they will.
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