Robert Frost

  LOVERS, forget your love,   
  And list to the love of these,   
She a window flower,   
  And he a winter breeze.   
   
When the frosty window veil           
  Was melted down at noon,   
And the cagèd yellow bird   
  Hung over her in tune,   
   
He marked her through the pane,   
  He could not help but mark,    
And only passed her by,   
  To come again at dark.   
   
He was a winter wind,   
  Concerned with ice and snow,   
Dead weeds and unmated birds,    
  And little of love could know.   
   
But he sighed upon the sill,   
  He gave the sash a shake,   
As witness all within   
  Who lay that night awake.    
   
Perchance he half prevailed   
  To win her for the flight   
From the firelit looking-glass   
  And warm stove-window light.   
   
But the flower leaned aside    
  And thought of naught to say,   
And morning found the breeze   
  A hundred miles away.   

 

From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.