Walter de la Mare

The Tryst

"Is there anybody there?" said the Maiden,
Knocking upon the bone;
And the skull in the moonlight listened
To the girl who stood alone.
She lifted the latch of silence,
She entered the churchyard gate,
Where shadows of yew trees lengthened,
And only the dead could wait.

She wore but a shift of linen,
Her feet were bare and white,
And strange was the smile she carried
Into that realm of night.
The skeleton lay on marble,
With roses round his head,
And she, like a child at Christmas,
Bent down to kiss the dead.

"Tell me," she whispered, "Beloved,
What dreams do the buried keep?
What songs do you sing in the darkness?
What visions disturb your sleep?"
But only the wind made answer,
Through grass and memorial stone,
While she pressed her lips so living
To his mouth of chalk and bone.

And nobody saw in the morning
The prints of her narrow feet,
Or the rose she had left as a token
Where living and dead worlds meet.
But children who play in the churchyard
Sometimes at twilight tell
Of a girl in white who wanders,
Still seeking her skeleton's spell.