The Hall of Shadows

THE sun is up, and through the woods
His golden rays are streaming ;
The dismal swamp, and swale so damp,
With faces bright are beaming.
And in the wind-fall, by the creek,
We hear the partridge drumming ;
And strange bright things, on airy wings,
Are all around us humming.

The merry schoolboys, in the woods
The chipmunk are pursuing ;
And as he starts, with happy hearts
They're after him hallooing.
The squirrel hears the urchins' cheers,
They never catch him lagging,
And on the beech, beyond their reach,
Hear how the fellow's bragging !

The redbird pauses in his song,
The face of man aye fearing,
And flashes, like a flame, along
The border of the clearing.
The humming-bird, above the flower,
Is like a halo bending ;
Or like the gleams we catch in dreams
Of heavenly things descending.

And hear the bugle of the bee
Among the tufted clover !
This day, like thee, I'll wander free,
My little wild-wood rover !
Through groves of beech, and maple green,
And pines of lofty stature ;
By this lone creek, once more we'll seek
The savage haunts of nature.

See there a noble troop of pines
Have made a sudden sally,
And all, in straight, unbroken lines,
Are rushing up the valley ;
And round about the lonely spring
They gather in a cluster,
Then off again, till on the plain,
The great battalions muster.

And there the little evergreens
Are clust'ring in the hollows,
And hazels green, with sumachs lean,
Among the weeping willows ;
Or sit in pride the creek beside,
Or through the valley ramble ;
Or up the height, in wild delight,
Among the rocks they scramble.

And here a gorge, all reft and rent,
With rocks in wild confusion,
As they were by the wood-gods sent
To guard them from intrusion ;
And gulfs, all yawning wild and wide,
As if by earthquakes shattered ;
And rocks that stand — a grizzly band !
By time and tempest battered.

Some great pines, blasted in their pride,
Above the gorge are bending ;
And rock-elms, from the other side
Their mighty arms extending.
And midway down the dark descent
One fearful hemlock's clinging;
His headlong fall he would prevent,
And grapnels out he's flinging.

One ash has ventured to the brink,
And tremblingly looks over
That awful steep, where shadows sleep,
And mists at noonday hover.
But further in the woods we go,
Through birch and maple valleys,
And elms that stand, like patriarchs grand,
In long dark leafy alleys.

Away, away ! from blue-eyed day,
The sunshine and the meadows ;
We find our way, at noon of day,
Within the Hall of Shadows.
How like a great cathedral vast !
With creeping vines roofed over,
While shadows dim, with faces grim,
Far in the distance hover.

Among the old cathedral aisles,
And Gothic arches bending,
And ever in the sacred pales
The twilight gloom descending.
And let me turn where'er I will,
A step is aye pursuing ;
And there's an eye upon me still
That's watching all I'm doing.

And in the centre there's a pool,
And by that pool is sitting
A shape of Fear, with shadows drear
For ever round her flitting.
Why is her face so full of woe ?
So hopeless and dejected ?
Sees she but there, in her despair,
Nought but herself reflected ?

Is it the gloom within my heart,
Or lingering superstition,
Which draws me here three times a year
To this weird apparition ?
I cannot tell what it may be !
I only know that seeing
That shape of Fear, draws me more near
The secret soul of being.