PASSING
(From the _Westminster Gazette_, 1914.)
I was standing on the Bridge before dawn of the summer morning;
heat-mist down on the water, and the bright face of Big Ben up there,
disjoint, set as it were in sky—so dark it was.
I had been there some time, seeking what air there might be in the town,
staring vaguely down the broadway of blackness between the misted lights
of the river banks, thinking idle thoughts, dreaming perhaps a little,
when suddenly I became conscious of something on the parapet. It seemed
to be perching there, a thin, gray shape, without face or limbs; and,
peering at it, I sidled along, till I found that I was getting no
nearer! Startled, I said:
“What is that? Who is it?”
Only a faint sigh answered.