The Unseen Follower

Something treads where I have trod,

A shadow answering to no light,

A breath the wind forgot,

A coldness neither day nor night.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

I dare not turn. I dare not look

Upon the thing that keeps my pace,

As if I were a written book

And it the hand that wrote my face.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

It does not speak, and yet I know

Its presence as I know my fear;

The way a river, deep below,

Feels what the surface cannot hear.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

Each step I take, it takes beside,

Or just behind, I cannot tell,

It rides the dark the way a tide

Rides out toward some sunken bell.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

There is no proof, and yet the dread

Sits heavier than proof could sit;

A knowing lodged behind my head,

A certainty I dare not admit.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

What watches has no need of eyes,

What follows has no need of feet,

It needs no form to terrorize,

No face to make the terror complete.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

I have walked the open road

Where nothing hides and nothing shows,

And still I felt that ancient load,

The company that no one knows.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

The daylight does not frighten it away,

It simply waits inside the shine;

Between the morning and the grey

It lingers, parallel to mine.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

I stop. The stillness does not cease,

Something within the stopping stirs,

As if my standing brought no peace

But only changed the way it were.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

Perhaps it is a memory

Of something I have not yet known,

A shadow of what I will be,

Returning to reclaim its own.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

Or else there is no identity for it,

No story that can hold its drape,

It lives where spirit's will not fit,

And follows, offering no escape.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

I shall walk on. What choice is mine?

The path ahead must still be trod.

I only pray that when I pine

For rest, it answers not to God.

⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹⊹ ࣪𖤐 𖦹 ༘⋆⊹

For if it does, then it was sent,

And if 'twas sent, then I was meant

To bear this unfaced thing until

I cross some dark and final hill,

And there at last, when I have ceased,

Perhaps I shall behold the beast.