A Reed by the River/The Ghost

by Virginia Woodward Cloud

THE GHOST

That little maid (Myself) I met,—was it in dreams we played?—
White April spun its lacy net, the timid, budding boughs were yet
      Too tender green for shade;
"Sweetheart," quoth I, "where hast thou been so long away from me?
Oft as the boughs turned white and green, thy like in daffodils I've seen
      And yet I saw not thee."

Wondering she looked. I sighed; "Alas, hast thou forgotten, too?
Forgot our fairies in the grass and how we knelt to hear them pass
      Amid the dusk and dew?
Our castle and our wood-bird's call,—these, these hast thou forgot?
The pebbles near the mill-stream's fall?—" "Nay, nay," spake she, "I know them all,
      But thy face, I know not."

"Child, child, thou art that self I had, thou shalt not go!" I cried.
"Ah, no," she said, "for I am glad, whilst thou art strange and old and sad;
      Mine is the green world wide!"—
That little maid (Myself) alone sped through sweet April's light,
Into a world all pristine sown with Spring's nativity new-blown
      And never hint of night.

 And I?—Face from the sun's red flame that smote white April's spears
I lay and dreamed; nor called her name that time she went . . . God knows there came
      No sound, save that of tears.