Presentiment

With saintly grace and reverent tread     She walked among the graves with me;     Her every footfall seemed to be A benediction on the dead. The guardian spirit of the place     She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn,     Surprised by 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. My child-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 know such little feet Could make a buried heart so sore!