First Sight
When first we met the nether world was white,
And on the steel-blue ice before her bower
I skated in the sunrise for an hour,
Till all the grey horizon, gulphed in light,
Was red against the bare boughs black as night;
Then suddenly her sweet face, like a flower
Enclosed in sables from the frost’s dim power,
Shone at her casement, and flashed burning bright
When first we met!
My skating being done, I loitered home,
And sought that day to lose her face again;
But love was weaving in his golden loom
My story up with hers, and all in vain
I strove to loose the threads he spun amain
When first we met!
Edmund Gosse.