Explore "When First I Saw Thee" by Gilbert Parker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When first I saw thee, lady, straightway came / The thought that somehow, somewhere, destiny, / Through blinding paths of happiness or blame, / Would bend my way of life, my soul to thee.
But then I put it from me: was not I / A wanderer? To-morrow I should be / In other lands-beside another sea; / Nay, you were but a star-gleam in my sky.
And so I came not in your sight awhile, / You gave no thought, and I passed not away; / But like some traveller in a deep defile
I walked in darkness even through the day: / Until at last the hands of Circumstance / Pointed the hour that waked me from my trance.