First snow! I see it young every winter,
Yet my face grows old
As Winter comes.
Days were passed in exchanging these nothings. Again his letter:
I become impatient to see you, and just now wanted to go to you, but my friends have met here to compose poems together.
She wrote:
Had you no time to come?
Then I would go to you.
O that I knew { an even way of love.
{ the art of composing poems.
He was pleased.
Come to my house. Here is the even way and here's the way to see each other.
That night he visited her, and talked touchingly of many things. "Would you be sad," he said, "if I should desert my house and become a monk?" He spoke sadly, and she wondered why such a thought had entered his mind, and whether it could be true or not. Overcome with melancholy she wept. Outside was tranquil rain and snow: they slept not at all, but talked together with feeling throughout the night as if the world were all forgotten. She felt that his affection was deeper than she had suspected. He seemed to feel everything in her, and could sympathize with her every emotion. In that case she could accomplish her determination from the beginning [to go to become a nun]. So she made up her mind, but said nothing and sat lamenting. He saw her feeling and said:
Lovers' fancy of a moment held us both through the night,
And she continued: