The Wraith.

A pale wraith stood in the dim grey dawn

Beside his old love's bed

Wavering like a film of lawn

And wrang his hands and said,

“Oh! I have come to make my prayer

For I cannot take my rest

When I think of the red crown I called your hair

And the cold stone in your breast.

“Out of the eyeless hopeless dark

The nights that are black and grey

Never a moon or faint star-spark

Or a lonely glimmer of day.

Oh! my love, I have come, love,

From the ebony gates of death

For the sake of the red crown I called your hair

And the jasmine of your breath.”

But his voice was lost like a mouse's scream

In a lonely empty house,

And the woman lay in a tender dream

Of love and orchard boughs,

Her cheeks were flushed and twice she sighed

As she turned upon her bed

And she had no thought for the thing that cried

Or the utterance of the dead.