Poems of Sentiment and Imagination/The Post-Boy's Song

by Frances A. Fuller

THE POST-BOY'S SONG.

The night is dark, and the way is long,

⁠And the clouds are flying fast;

The night-wind sings a dreary song,

⁠And the trees creak in the blast:

The moon is down in the tossing sea,

⁠And the stars shed not a ray;

The lightning flashes fearfully,

⁠But I must on my way.

Full many a hundred time have I

⁠Gone o'er it in the dark,

Till my faithful steeds can well descry

⁠Each long familiar mark:

Withal, should peril come to-night,

⁠God have us in his care!

For without help, and without light,

⁠The boldest well beware.

Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of fate,

⁠Forward and back I go;

Bearing a thread to the desolate

⁠To darken their web of woe;

And a brighter thread to the glad of heart,

⁠And a mingled one to all;

But the dark and the light I can not part,

⁠Nor alter their hues at all.

Now on, my steeds! the lightning's flash

⁠An instant gilds our way;

But steady! by that dreadful crash

⁠The heavens seemed rent away.

Soho! here comes the blast anew,

⁠And a pelting flood of rain;

Steady! a sea seems bursting through

⁠A rift in some upper main.

'Tis a terrible night, a dreary hour,

⁠But who will remember to pray

That the care of the storm-controlling power

⁠May be over the post-boy's way?

The wayward wanderer from his home,

⁠The sailor upon the sea,

Have prayers to bless them where they roam—

⁠Who thinketh to pray for me?

But the scene is changed! up rides the moon

⁠Like a ship upon the sea;

Now on, my steeds! this glorious noon

⁠Of a night so dark shall be

A scene for us; toss high your heads

⁠And cheerily speed away;

We shall startle the sleepers in their beds

⁠Before the dawn of day.

Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of fate,

⁠Forward and back I go;

Bearing a thread to the desolate
⁠To darken their web of woe;
And a brighter thread to the glad of heart,
⁠And a mingled one for all;
But the dark and the light I can not part,
⁠Nor alter their hues at all.