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Later Poems of Alexander Anderson

"Surfaceman": Edited with a Biographical Sketch, by Alexander Brown: A New Edition

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SHADOW AND SUNSHINE.

Shadow and light are lying
On all the hills I see;
Flicker of shadow and sunshine
On wood and stream and tree.

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And I who am lying watching,
With a dreamer's idle eye,
The changes coming and going
Between the earth and sky.
I think of the human ocean
With its dreary ebb and flow,
Foam on the crests of the surges,
And dead men lying below.
Flicker of light and shadow,
On wood and stream and tree;
Coming and going of changes
As far as the eye can see.
What is it all but a symbol
Of your petty hopes and fears,
A rainbow over the shadows,
And sunshine through our tears.