The Skaters

The icy water has gone to sleep,
    And man can waken it now no more;
For the fairy Frost has roofed[?] the deep
    With a crystal bridge from shore to shore 
And not a ripple is left to leap 
    On the perfect glade of the emerald floor.

Is it life or death? Ha, ha! look out,
    As the low sun glances over the rock,
Down from the hills with a hurrying shout 
And a clatter of steel, the children flock; 
The lake is alive with a joyous rout
    That the ice-bound echoes merrily mock.

Danny and Willie, the two bright Kates
    And Herman the stately, and Benny the less, 
They are up and away on their ringing skates, 
    Chasing the flash of our true Queen Bess, 
Who well may challenge the frosty fates, 
    With the sun to her heart, and cheek, and tress.

Have you seen the swallows in curved dip 
    Just sooth the pool with dusting wind
So lightly the leaving skaters slip,
    And wheel away with a graceful wing,
On flashing feet that will not trip 
    As over their braided trails they ring. 

Was never a bird so fleet, I guess,
    Was never a bird so blithe I know,
As she of the fettered and sunny tress, 
    And cheeks abloom in that hood of snow 
Flying and whirling and laughing Bess, 
    Who flits like a red-wing to and fro. 

There’s just a flash of her crimson cape 
    There’s just a flutter of struggling curls 
A sudden gleam of the plaids that drape 
    The free, strong limbs of our queen of girls
And the eye, rejoiced in a faultless shape, 
    Is dared with her swift, fantastic whirls. 

Danny and Willie, the two bright Kates,
    And Herman the stately and Benny the less, 
May heed the wind on their hurrying skates, 
    But catch no ribbon nor fluttering trees
Of our queen of girls as she flits and waits, 
    Our lithesome, blithesome, & blooming Bess.