THE VALLEY OF LIFE
When I was a child joyfully I ran, hand claspt in
hand, now with my mother, now with my father, or with
younger, blithe companions, now in sunlight, now in
shadow and dread, through the strange new Valley of
Life.
Sometimes on the high-road, then over the fields and
meadows, or through the solemn forests; sometimes along
the happy brook-side, listening to its music or the clamor
of the falls, as the pleasant waters hurried or grew still,
in the winding way down the Valley of Life.
And as we moved along, hand claspt in hand, sometimes
the hand-clasp was broken, and I, a happy child, ran
swiftly aside from the path to gather flower or fruit or get
sight of a singing bird; or to lean down and pluck a pearly
stone from under the lapping waves; or climbed a tree
and swayed, shouting, on its waving boughs—then
returning to the clasp of loving hands, and so passing on
and on down the opening Valley of Life.
In the bright morning I walked wondering; wondering
I walked through the still twilight and many-colored
sunset; watching the great stars gather, and lost in the
mystery of worlds beyond number, and spaces beyond
thought, till, side by side, we lay down to sleep under the
stars in the Valley of Life and of Dreams.
Then there came a time when the hands that held me,
—the loving hands that guided my steps and drew me
gently on,—turned cold, and slipt from my grasp; I
waited, but they came not back, and slowly and alone
I plodded on down the Valley of Life and of Death.
“Where went they?” I asked my heart and the
whispering waters and the sighing trees. “Where went
my loving and well-belovèd guides? Did they climb the
hills and tarry; did they, tired, lie down to sleep and forget
me forever; leaving me to journey on without their
dear care down the long Valley of Life?”
I could not know, for I heard no answer except my own
heart's beating. But other comrades came,—one dearer
than all,—and as time went on I felt the little hands of
my own children clasping mine while, once more happy
and elate, with them I traveled down the miraculous Valley
of Life.
But, as on we wander, hearing their bright voices, and
seeing their joy upon the way,—their happy chasings
here and there, their eager run to hold again our hands,
—how soon, I think, shall I feel the slipping away of the
clasping fingers while I fall asleep by the wayside, or
climb the cloud-enveloped hills, and leave those I love
to journey on down the lonely Valley of Life?
And I say: “Surely the day and the hour hasten; grief
will be theirs for a season; then will they, as did I, with
brave hearts journey on the appointed way.” But where
then shall my spirit rest? Will it sink unconscious into
endless night? or shall I, in some new dawn, and by some
unimagined miracle not less than that which brought me
here, wander, with those that led me once, and those I
led, hand claspt in hand, as of old, by the murmuring
waters and under the singing trees of the ever-wonderful,
the never-ending Valley of Life?
