Presentiment

With saintly grace and reverent tread,
  She walked among the graves with me;
  Her every foot-fall seemed to be
A benediction on the dead.

The guardian spirit of the place
  She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn
  Surprised in 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.

The folk-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 think such little feet
Could make a buried heart so sore!