Gray Lady

A lady, all in muffled gray,

With net of pearls on her black hair,

And voice suffused with black despair

Walks, and in her night-clad way

Despises relics of the day.

In her palm is burning shame,

Her feet with tortured hope are shod,

Her mind o’ercome with fear of God-

And in her heart, a sickly flame:

She longs to bear a better name.

Her name, an ally of the gray

That holds her frozen heart submerged.

She cannot leave: her feet, though urged

By gentle whispers of the day

In gray are bound, in dark shall stay.