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
    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!

        Edna St. Vincent Millay