The Yellow Book/Volume 7/Under Grey Skies

by S. Cornish Watkins

Under Grey Skies

By S. Cornish Watkins

 

Under grey skies we stood that night,
We two, and saw, below us there,
The city twinkling light on light.
Behind, the long road glimmered bare
’Twixt shadowy hedges, faint and white,
And heavy hung the silent air.

Dimly I saw the fair pale face
Uplifted, like a slender flower
In some forgotten garden-place,
That, at the solemn twilight hour,
Through leaves that cross and interlace,
Craves from the night her dewy dower.

And all my heart went out to thine,
And the lips trembled, as to show
The fire of love that might not shine;
For, through the glamour and the glow,
I felt the clear eyes turned on mine,
That knew not love, and could not know.

Under grey skies I stand again,
And far beneath me, down the hill,
The gas-lamps glimmer through the rain.
As it was then, the night is chill,
And no one knows the secret pain
That holds the sad heart lonely still.