Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
The roots of last year’s roses in my breast;
I am as surely riper in my mind
As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed.
Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will,
Call me in all things what I was before,
A flutterer in the wind, a woman still;
I tell you I am what I was and more.
My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air.
My sky is black with small birds bearing south;
Say what you will, confuse me with fine care,
Put by my word as but an April truth,—
Autumn is no less on me that a rose
Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes.
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1922)
