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 flushed 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 lose the threads he spun amain,
When first we met.