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 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;To-day 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.
Words in this poem
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
- listless a.
- Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless. [OE. listles, lustles. See Lust.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Alms is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59167; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Alms, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/alms.html, id L24372.
Form and metre
Alms is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A before · goA · love · snowA
- 2 -A-A cloth · againA · love · paneA
- 4 -A-A south · stemA · love · themA
- 5 -A-A watched · frayA · fed · sayA
- 6 -A-A sight · doorA · step · beforeA
- 7 -A-A love · sillA · birds · willA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My heart is what it was before, | 8 | ········ |
| A house where people come and go; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But it is winter with your love, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The sashes are beset with snow. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| I light the lamp and lay the cloth, | 8 | ········ |
| I blow the coals to blaze again; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| But it is winter with your love, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The frost is thick upon the pane. | 8 | ········ |
| I know a winter when it comes: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The leaves are listless on the boughs; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I watched your love a little while, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And brought my plants into the house. | 8 | ········ |
| I water them and turn them south, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I snap the dead brown from the stem; | 8 | ········ |
| But it is winter with your love,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I only tend and water them. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| There was a time I stood and watched | 8 | ········ |
| The small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I loved the beggar that I fed, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I cared for what he had to say, | 8 | ········ |
| I stood and watched him out of sight; | 8 | ········ |
| To-day I reach around the door | 8 | ········ |
| And set a bowl upon the step; | 8 | ········ |
| My heart is what it was before, | 8 | ········ |
| But it is winter with your love; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I scatter crumbs upon the sill, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And close the window,--and the birds | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| May take or leave them, as they will. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.