When the Year Grows Old

When the Year Grows Old

By Edna St. Vincent Millay - 1892-1950

 

I cannot but remember

  When the year grows old—

October—November—

  How she disliked the cold!

 

She used to watch the swallows

  Go down across the sky,

And turn from the window

  With a little sharp sigh.

 

And often when the brown leaves

  Were brittle on the ground,

And the wind in the chimney

  Made a melancholy sound,

 

She had a look about her

  That I wish I could forget—

The look of a scared thing

  Sitting in a net!

 

Oh, beautiful at nightfall

  The soft spitting snow!

And beautiful the bare boughs

  Rubbing to and fro!

 

But the roaring of the fire,

  And the warmth of fur,

And the boiling of the kettle

  Were beautiful to her!

 

I cannot but remember

  When the year grows old—

October—November—

  How she disliked the cold!