Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole--
I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate:
To me, to me, ye must pay the toll!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?
And the ghost is a whim of an ailing mind?
Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day
When ye heard a voice in the calling wind?
Why did ye falter and look behind?
At the creeping mists when the hour grew late?
Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Drink and forget, make merry and boast,
But the boast rings false and the jest is thin--
In the hour that I meet you ghost to ghost,
Stripped of the flesh that you skulk within,
Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin,
Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate!
Ah, a weary time has the waiting been,
But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!




"MY LOVE THAT WAS SO TRUE"


ONE OUT-OF-DOORS: SARAH PIATT