Poems by James Rhoades :: :: University of Virginia Library

Out of the tunnel at last, I think!—
Not unlike that of my life, which has run
Thro' the ribs of this mountain, I might have climb'd,
But chose the black heart of it hid from the sun.

So all this time I have had no peep
Of the pure bright sea and the flocks abroad,
Nor sunlight, nor starlight, save some few gleams
Through shafts in the darkness let down by God;

Nor sweet air's murmur, nor any rain,
But a chill wind dank with the dews of death,
And, as water-floods break on a drowning brain,
The sound of swift footing and furious breath.

Then to think, as the barren black darkness you reap,
That the hill-tops above with God's morning are red,
Or the pale moon is gathering her stars, like sheep,
Into fair, safe folds of the heaven overhead!

Came a whisper—‘still shines thy guiding star;’
Came a shriek—‘this, too, shall avail thee not’—
Like a hull on the sea, whose help is far,
Man-forsaken and God-forgot.

But a moment—a change! for the black grew to gray;
The gray slowly quicken'd, till light dawn'd plain—
Earth has seem'd purer, though far less gay,
To the spirit that pass'd through that region of pain.