University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Madeline

With other poems and parables: By Thomas Gordon Hake

collapse section 
expand section 
collapse section 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 X. 
 XI. 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
XIV. ON THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
 XV. 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 XIX. 
 XX. 
 XXI. 
 XXII. 
 XXIII. 
 XXIV. 
 XXV. 
 XXVI. 
 XXVII. 
 XXVIII. 
 XXIX. 
 XXX. 
 XXXI. 
 XXXII. 
 XXXIII. 
 XXXIV. 
 XXXV. 
 XXXVI. 
 XXXVII. 
 XXXVIII. 
 XXXIX. 
 XL. 
 XLI. 
 XLII. 
 XLIII. 
 XLIV. 
 XLV. 
 XLVI. 
 XLVII. 
 XLVIII. 
 XLIX. 
 L. 
 LI. 
 LII. 
 LIII. 
 LIV. 
 LV. 
 LVI. 
 LVII. 
 LVIII. 
 LIX. 
 LX. 
 LXI. 
 LXII. 
 LXIII. 
 LXIV. 
 LXV. 


191

XIV. ON THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.

There comes a breeze, not from the pole,
Nor from the burning sand;
It comes as if its whiffs had stole
Across a sunny land;
It has a softness in its dole,
As if the deep when calm
Had gust on gust with sea-weeds fann'd
To give it up their balm.
Though Nature's wily voice be glad,
Playful the curling gale,
And for the asking may be had
her most romantic tale,
She sees the heart of man too sad,
With sorrows overlaid,
To rush again within her pale;
And triumphs like a maid.

192

She seeks it in the Cedrus-glades
At musings to connive;
She stirs the shrinking bough, whose shades
Seem trodden on alive.
As grief the eye of man pervades
And makes the lashes wave,
She bids the boughs and breezes strive,
And earth with sadness pave.

EPODE.

Finds man no rest? Not lofty is his love:
At most a lunar span above the ground!
Far statelier forms in higher orbits move
Nor jar on Nature through their silent round,
And act, these strolling monads, longer plays,
Nor utter murmurs louder than their rays.