Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/The Clothes of a Ghost

by Sarah Piatt

THE CLOTHES OF A GHOST. [The Spirit of a beautiful and vain Woman speaks.]

They were shut from me in a costly chest,
 Though I, in a woman's slight, sad way,
Of the lovely things that I loved the best,
 Held none, I fear me, so sweet as they—
        For I was daintily dressed.

A precious glimmer of gold was mine,
 To coil and charm on my bosom then;
And two great jewels whose restless shine
 Troubled the foolish hearts of men,
        Who fancied their light divine.

These thin hands wore on their tremulous grace
 Such fair little gloves as soft as snows;
And softly laid on this dim, fixed face
 Were calm, clear colours of white and rose,
        In another time and place.

There's a withering, weird half-picture of me—
 No, of my clothes—on a shadowy wall:
A wonderful painter, they said, was he,
 Who studied my drapery, that was all,
        Not guessing what I might be.

Yet he followed me, in my far, flushed day,
 And thought he knew me, and held me dear;
And now, should I waver across his way,
 He would grow as ghastly as I am, with fear,
        Though he is so wise and grey!

But my beautiful clothes were his despair—
 They were so well-cut, so charmingly made.
It is best that they were not worn threadbare;
 It is best that I did not feel them fade;
        It is best—did he ever care?

I, a thing too fearfully fine to show,
 Or stain the starlight wherein I pass,
Must still have the old, fierce vanity grow,
 Must yearn by the water, as by a glass,
        For a glimpse of—nothing, I know!

Oh, my lovely clothes that I still admire!
 They were only fashioned for moth and rust;
Yet I, their wearer, though scarred by fire,
 Shall sit with the gentle ghosts, I trust,
        Who once wore meaner attire!

For, had I been less like the lilies arrayed—
 They of the field that toil not nor spin—
I had thought of my Father's work, nor stayed
 In empty glory, in shining sin,
        Far into the final shade.