She stood like Spring before my Winter door,
Paler than dawn, wind-swept and delicate;
And her small hands, clasped like twin fragile shells,
Were white as Spring skies faintly veined with blue.

Years had she flown upon the moorland's edge,
Graven upon some sleeping ploughland scene;
And I with parted lips would stand and gaze,
While clouds breathed huge still outlines in the sky:

And she was not on moor or field or hill;
Perhaps a plough was dark against the air;
And night would come, and the pale blossoming moon
Shining upon that carven, furrowed sea.

Yet once she stood, thin, pale, a rain-clear dream,
With skyey white arms at my Winter door;
But when I rose the air was desolate,
With thin tree-fingers frozen in the sky.