The Shadow.
By Margaret Steele Anderson
Get you away! Is not the rose at flow'r?
And list that song! The bird is in the sky!
Ah, foolish one, I know your final hour,
I know the very place where you shall lie.
Silence! The music, and the bridal-train!
Do you not see the maidens in their white?
Along that whiteness, lo, I am the stain,
And darken where the Lord of all shall smite!
Yet leave me, Shadow, leave the day dear-bought
When the swift runner reaches to the goal!
That day is mine, and at the end, unsought,
I ask the runner's body from his soul.
Then hast thou all! The beautiful, the brave!
Nothing untouched, dark Visitant, of thee!
Oh blinded Reason! Sweeter for the grave.
And fair a thousand-fold because of me!