Sorrow's Ghost

I saw one sitting, habited in gray,
Beside a lonely stream; and in her eyes
Was all the tenderness of twilight skies
In middle spring, when lawns are flushed with May.
"Mysterious one," I cried, " who art thou? Say!"
She answered in low tones scarce heard through sighs:
"Look on this face! Dost thou not recognize
A face well known once, in another day?"

Then on the air these words grew audible:
"The same she is who scorched thine eyes with tears,
But changed now by the sovereign force of years,
And piteous grown, and no more terrible:
Look on her now, who once thy life opprest, —
Called bitterest Sorrow then; but now named Rest."