Shapes of Clay

With saintly grace and reverent tread,

She walked among the graves with me;

Her every foot-fall seemed to be

A benediction on the dead.

The guardian spirit of the place

She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn

Surprised in the untimely morn

She made with her resplendent face.

Moved by some waywardness of will,

Three paces from the path apart

She stepped and stood—my prescient heart

Was stricken with a passing chill.

The folk-lore of the years agone

Remembering, I smiled and thought:

"Who shudders suddenly at naught,

His grave is being trod upon."

But now I know that it was more

Than idle fancy. O, my sweet,

I did not think such little feet

Could make a buried heart so sore!