Shapes of Clay eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Shapes of Clay.

Shapes of Clay eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Shapes of Clay.

PRESENTIMENT.

  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!

A STUDY IN GRAY.

  I step from the door with a shiver
    (This fog is uncommonly cold)
  And ask myself:  What did I give her?—­
    The maiden a trifle gone-old,
    With the head of gray hair that was gold.

  Ah, well, I suppose ’twas a dollar,
    And doubtless the change is correct,
  Though it’s odd that it seems so much smaller
    Than what I’d a right to expect. 
    But you pay when you dine, I reflect.

  So I walk up the street—­’twas a saunter
    A score of years back, when I strolled
  From this door; and our talk was all banter
    Those days when her hair was of gold,
    And the sea-fog less searching and cold.

  I button my coat (for I’m shaken,
    And fevered a trifle, and flushed
  With the wine that I ought to have taken,)
    Time was, at this coat I’d have blushed,
    Though truly, ’tis cleverly brushed.

  A score?  Why, that isn’t so very
    Much time to have lost from a life. 
  There’s reason enough to be merry: 
    I’ve not fallen down in the strife,
    But marched with the drum and the fife.

  If Hope, when she lured me and beckoned,
    Had pushed at my shoulders instead,
  And Fame, on whose favors I reckoned,
    Had laureled the worthiest head,
    I could garland the years that are dead.

  Believe me, I’ve held my own, mostly
    Through all of this wild masquerade;
  But somehow the fog is more ghostly
    To-night, and the skies are more grayed,
    Like the locks of the restaurant maid.

  If ever I’d fainted and faltered
    I’d fancy this did but appear;
  But the climate, I’m certain, has altered—­
    Grown colder and more austere
    Than it was in that earlier year.

  The lights, too, are strangely unsteady,
    That lead from the street to the quay. 
  I think they’ll go out—­and I’m ready
    To follow.  Out there in the sea
    The fog-bell is calling to me.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Shapes of Clay from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.