Poems (Bushnell)/The Shadow

by Frances Louisa Bushnell

XXXIV
THE SHADOW

The village churchyard lay in the light
 Of the moon that softly shed,
Down from the far mid-heaven of night,
 Her silver noon on the dead.

The elm trees hung their branches down,
 Heavy with night and sleep;
The lights were out in the little town
 And eyes had forgot to weep.

I stood in a dream, like one upcast
 On some long-remembered shore;
And there in the moonlight lay my past
 And all I had wept of yore.

But alas! it was all more strangely far
 Than in thought it had ever been;
And that grave seemed nearer to yonder star
 Than to me, and more akin.

And alas! alas! I had lost my tears,
 And my heart began to know
How relentless are the effacing years,
 How soon it is long ago.

I could not weep, and I could not pray,
 Till the shadow behind the stone
Began to lengthen away, away,
 Seeking the far unknown.

On the grave it laid, and upon my thought,
 The touch of eternity;
It brought what nothing before had brought,
 A thrill and my tears to me.