Miller’s End

Isn’t this another wonderful poem by Charles Causley?

Miller’s End

When we moved to Miller’s End,
Every afternoon at four
A thin shadow of a shade
Quavered through the garden door

Dressed in black from top to toe
And a veil about her head
To us it seemed as though
She came walking through the dead.

With a basket on her arm
Through the hedge gap she would pass
Never a mark that we could spy
On the flagstones or the grass

When we told the garden boy
How we saw the phantom glide,
With a grin his face with bright
As the pool he stood beside.

‘That’s no ghost walk,’ Billy said,
“Nor a ghost you fear to stop-
Only old Miss Wickerby
On a short cut to the shop.’

So next day we lay in wait,
Passed a civil time of day,
Said how pleased we were she came
Daily down our garden way.

Suddenly her cheek it paled,
Turned, as quick, from ice to flame.
‘Tell me,’ said Miss Wickerby
‘Who spoke of me and my name?’
‘Bill the garden-boy.’ She sighed,
Said, ‘Of course, you could not know,
How he drowned – that very pool-
A frozen winter – long ago.’

Charles Causley