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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339813" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Shadow</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">1.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A vision haunts me, love, when thou art near,<br>Chilling my heart as frost nips April flowers;<br>A covering cloud, when all is fair and clear,<br>That takes the sweetness from our happiest hours.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">2.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It steals the colour from our brightest sky;<br>It mars my soul's content when all seems well;<br>It quenches laughter in a shuddering sigh —<br>In thoughts that thrill me like a tolling bell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">3.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It numbs my passion when I love thee most;<br>It dims my eyes — it veils thy face; it slips,<br>An unseen shadow, like a creeping ghost,<br>Betwixt thy kisses and my hungering lips.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">4.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What, amid richest plenty, starves me thus?<br>What is it draws my trustful hand from thine?<br>That sits a guest at marriage feast with us,<br>And mixes poison with the food and wine?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">5.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In broad noonday — in dark hours long and lone —<br>A small green mound, a lettered name, I see.<br>There love is symboled in a graven stone —<br>There I lie dead, worth nothing more to thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">6.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There weep the dews, and winds of winter blow;<br>The soft breeze rustles in the bending grass;<br>The cold rain falls there, and the drifting snow —<br>But tears fall not, nor lovers' footsteps pass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">7.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bees hum all day amid the young spring leaves;<br>The rooks caw loud from every elm- tree bough;<br>The sparrows twitter in the old church eaves —<br>But no voice cries for me or calls me now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">8.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bright beams of morn encompass me about;<br>The stars shine o'er me, and the pale moonlight;<br>But I, that lit and warmed thee, am gone out,<br>Like a burnt candle, in eternal night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">9.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Earth to the earth upon this churchyard slope.<br>We made no tryst for happier time and place;<br>And in thy sky gleams no immortal hope,<br>No distant radiance from my vanished face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">10.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still the sands between thy fingers run —<br>Desires, delights, ambitions — days and years,<br>Rich hours of life for thee, though mine are done —<br>Too full for vain regrets, too brief for tears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">11.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have lost all, but thou dost hold and save,<br>Adding new treasure to thy rifled store,<br>While weeds grow long on the neglected grave</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where sleeps thy mate who may be thine no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">12.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the fate I feel, the ghost I see,<br>The dream I dream at night, the thought I dread —<br>That thus 'twill be some day with thee and me,<br>Thou fain to live while I am doubly dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">13.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou still defiant of our common foe;<br>I vanquished quite — the once- resplendent crown<br>Of all thy joys become a dragging woe,<br>To be lopped off, lest it should weigh thee down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">14.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I, once thy sap of life, a wasteful drain<br>On thy green vigour, like a rotten branch;<br>I, once thy health, a paralyzing pain,<br>A bleeding wound that thou must haste to stanch.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">15.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Because the dead are dead — the past is gone;<br>Because dear life is sweet and time is brief,<br>And some must fall, and some must still press on,<br>Nor waste scant strength in unavailing grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">16.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I blame thee not. I know what must be must.<br>Nor shall I suffer when apart from thee.<br>I shall not care, when I am mouldering dust,<br>That once quick love is in the grave with me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">17.<br>Cast me away — thou knowest I shall not fret;<br>Take thy due joys — I shall not bear the cost.<br>I, that am thus forgotten, shall forget,<br>Nor shed one tear for all that I have lost.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">18.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not then, not then shall sting of death and dole,<br>The penal curse of life and love, befall;<br>'Tis now I wear the sackcloth on my soul,<br>Bereaved and lonely, while possessed of all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">19.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">0, wert thou dead, should I, beloved, turn<br>Deaf heart to memory when of thee she spake?<br>Should I, when this pure fire had ceased to burn,<br>Seek other hearths, for sordid comfort's sake?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">20.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No — no! Yet I am mortal — I am weak —<br>In need of warmth when wintry winds are cold;<br>And fateful years and circumstance will wreak<br>Their own stern will on mine, when all is told.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">21.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How can I keep thee? Day and night I grope<br>In Nature's book, and in all books beside,<br>For but one touch of a substantial hope.<br>But all is vague and void on every side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">22.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whence did we come? And is it there we go?<br>We look behind — night hides our place of birth;<br>The blank before hides heaven, for aught we know.<br>But what is heaven to us, whose home is earth?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">23.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Flesh may be gross — the husk that holds the seed —<br>And gold and gems worth more than common bread;<br>But flesh is us, and bread is what we need,<br>And, changed and glorious, we should still be dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">24.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What is the infinite universe to him<br>Who has no home? Eternal Future seems,<br>Like the Eternal Past, unreal and dim —<br>The airy region of a poet's dreams.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">25.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What spirit essence, howsoe'er divine,<br>Can our lost selves restore from dusty grave?<br>Thy mortal mind and body — thine and mine —<br>Make all the joys I know, and all I crave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">26.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No fair romance of transcendental bliss,<br>No tale of palms and crowns my dull heart stirs,<br>That only hungers for a woman's kiss,<br>And asks no life that is not one with hers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">27.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not such Hereafter can I wish to see;<br>Not this pale hope my sinking soul exalts;<br>I want no sexless angel — only thee,<br>My human love, with all thy human faults.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">28.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just as thou art — not beautiful or wise,<br>But prone to simple sins and sad unrest;<br>With thy warm lips and arms, and thy sweet eyes —<br>Sweeter for tears they weep upon my breast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">29.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just as thou art — with thy soft household ways,<br>Thy noble failures and thy poor success,<br>Thy love that fits me for my strenuous days —<br>A mortal woman — neither more nor less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">30.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thou must pass with these too rapid hours<br>To that great deep from whence we both were brought;<br>Thy sentient flesh must turn to grass and flowers,<br>To birds and beasts, to dust — to air — to naught.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">31.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I know the parable. The great oaks grow<br>To their vast stature from an acorn grain,<br>And mightiest man was once an embryo.<br>But how can nothing bring thee forth again?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">32.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And is the new oak tree the old oak tree?<br>And is the son the father? And wouldst thou,<br>If thou couldst rise from nothing, be to me<br>Thy present self, that satisfies me now?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">33.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Words — words! A dream that fades in Faith's embrace,<br>And melts in Reason's all- refining fires;<br>The cherished hope of every age and race;<br>Born of man's fancy and his own desires.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">34.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here in our little island- home we bide<br>Our few brief years — 'tis all that we possess.<br>The Infinite lies around on every side,<br>But what it holds no mortal mind may guess.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">35.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say we remain — a lasting miracle —<br>As well we may; for this small world is rife<br>With mystic wonders that no tongue may tell,<br>And all things teem and travail with new life.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">36.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say we awake — ineffably alive,<br>Divinely perfect — in some higher sphere!<br>'Twill not be we — the we who strain and strive,<br>And love and learn, and joy and suffer, here.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">37.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What is our hope, if any hope there be?<br>'Tis for some bliss uncared for and unknown,<br>That some strange beings, yet unborn, shall see.<br>Alas! And all we cry for is our own!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">38.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Only to be ourselves — not cast abroad<br>In space and time, for either bliss or woe —<br>Only to keep the treasures we have stored!<br>And they must pass away. And we must go.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">39.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How can we bear it? How can we submit?<br>Like a wild beast imprisoned, in our pain<br>We rave and rage for some way out of it,<br>But bruise and bleed against the bars in vain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">40.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All — all is dark. Beyond our birth and death —<br>At either end — the same unyielding door.<br>We live, we love, while we draw human breath.<br>This much we know — but we can know no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">41.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The stars shine down upon the minster spires,<br>Silent, and pale, and still, like watching eyes.<br>Think of the tumult of those spinning fires —<br>Think of the vastness of those midnight skies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">42.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Think of our world in the immense unknown —<br>Only a grain of stellar dust; and man,<br>Wanting a God, a Saviour, all his own —<br>Wanting to break the universal plan!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">43.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He but a phase of planetary change,<br>That once was not, and will give place anon<br>To other forms, more beautiful and strange —<br>To pass in turn — till earth herself is gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">44.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Earth, that is next to nothing in the sum<br>Of things created — a brief mote in space,<br>With all her aeons past and yet to come.<br>Ah, think of it! How we forget our place!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">45.<br>Casual atoms in the mighty scheme<br>That needs us not, we dimly wax and wane,<br>Dissolving ever like a passing dream —<br>A breath breathed forth and then drawn back again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">46.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lone in these infinite realms, perchance unseen —<br>Unheard. And yet not lost. And not so small,<br>So feebly futile, pitifully mean,<br>As our poor creeds would make us, after all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">47.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still are we details of the great design,<br>Set to our course, like circling sun and star;<br>Mortal, infinitesimal — yet divine,<br>Like Him — or It — that made us what we are.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">48.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let manhood, God- begotten, have its due.<br>'Tis God — whate'er He be — hath made us thus,<br>Ourselves as gods to know the right and true.<br>Shall He not, then, be justified in us?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">49.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The warm sap runs; the tender leaves unfold;<br>Ant helps his brother ant; birds build in spring;<br>The patient earthworm sifts the crumbled mould; —<br>A sacred instinct guides each living thing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">50.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shall we, its born interpreters, not heed?<br>Shall we confess us failures, whom He lifts<br>So high above these creatures that succeed?<br>Or prove us worthy of our nobler gifts?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">51.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shall we not prove us worthy? Ay, we will<br>Because we can, we must — through peace and strife,<br>Bright hope and black despair, come good, come ill.<br>'Tis man's sole title to his place in life.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">52.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To stand upright in all the winds that blow,<br>Unbeaten as a tree in driving rain;<br>In all our doubts, to do the best we know,<br>From no base fear of loss or hope of gain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">53.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To still the cry of self — give listening ears<br>To stern Truth's message, whatsoe'er it be;<br>To share our brother's toil and dry his tears —<br>This is the task set forth for thee and me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">54.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the lesson that we live to learn,<br>And, by brave thought, by word and deed, to teach;<br>These are the heights our lifted eyes discern<br>Through cloud and darkness, that our souls must reach.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">55.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not less am I in wisdom and in will<br>Than ants and worms. I am full- furnished too<br>My arduous errand hither to fulfil.<br>I know my work, and what a man can do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">56.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My God, I ask Thee nothing. Thou hast given<br>This conscious mind, this brain without a flaw;<br>And I will strive, as I have humbly striven,<br>To make them serve their purpose and Thy law.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">57.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But thee, my soul's companion — thee I seek<br>For daily courage to support my lot.<br>In thee hath Nature made me strong or weak.<br>My human comforter, forsake me not!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">58.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My nobler self, in whom I live my best,<br>Strengthen me! Raise me! Help me to the last!<br>Lay thy dear head upon my throbbing breast —<br>Give me thy hands, that I may hold thee fast!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">59.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come close — come closer! Let me feel thy heart,<br>Thy pulsing heart, thy breathing lips, on mine.<br>O love, let only death and graveyard part —<br>If they must part — my flesh and soul from thine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">60.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let no mistrust, no doubt, no poor caprice<br>Darken for me in thy transparent gaze;<br>Let no self- wrought estrangement wreck our peace,<br>Nor vain dissension waste our precious days.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">61.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Be thou my purer eyes, my keener ears,<br>My finer conscience, steadfast, unafraid —<br>Till these few, swift, inexorable years<br>Have borne us both beyond the reach of aid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">62.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Be thou my staff upon this lonely way.<br>Be thou my lamp till need of light is past —<br>Till the dark shadow, lengthening day by day,<br>Spreads over all and quenches us at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">63.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Keep me from falling! Keep me from despair!<br>Keep me true man, if only man I be,<br>Faithful and brave to bear what I must bear.<br>For what else have I, if I have not thee?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ada+Cambridge">Ada Cambridge</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339813" data-title="The Shadow de Ada Cambridge" data-description="1.

A vision haunts me, love, when thou art near,
Chilling my heart as frost nips April flowers;
A covering cloud, when all is fair and clear,
That takes the sweetness from our happiest hours.



2.

It steals the colour from our brightest sky;
It..."></div>
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