| Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917. |
| |
| 17. When the Year Grows Old |
| |
| |
| I CANNOT but remember | |
| When the year grows old— | |
| October—November— | |
| How she disliked the cold! | |
| |
| She used to watch the swallows | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Sitting in a net! | |
| |
| Oh, beautiful at nightfall | |
| The soft spitting snow! | |
| And beautiful the bare boughs | |
| Rubbing to and fro! | 20 |
| |
| 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 | 25 |
| When the year grows old— | |
| October—November— | |
| How she disliked the cold! | |
| |
|
|
|
