Lost Love

The spring came warm, and warmed my heart,
And soon its life began to part
Me from the frost that froze me fast
And make my icy lifeblood start.

And then the summer came at last;
My heart began to make repast
On poems and clouds and lovely things,
And soon the deathly chill was past.

But autumn's come, with frosty wings;
The former hopes he downward flings
As every leaf, like all the rain,
And now my heart less often sings—

Shall I anew taste winter's pain?
I think I must, and yet I fain
Would spring and summer know again,
Would spring and summer know again.

—May 2012. After Robert Frost.

My notes suggest I wrote this for an HSLDA poetry contest in May 2012; the datestamp on my file is 12/5 of that year. Entrants were given “seasons” as the prompt and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” as the structure to follow. I have no memory of writing this.