PRESENTIMENT
by: Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
- ITH
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 so little feet
- Could make a buried heart so sore!
"Presentiment" is reprinted
from The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce Vol. IV: Shapes
of Clay. Ambrose Bierce. New York: Neale Publishing Company,
1910. |
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