Music, and Other Poems

LIGHT BETWEEN THE TREES

     Long, long, long the trail
       Through the brooding forest-gloom,
     Down the shadowy, lonely vale
       Into silence, like a room
         Where the light of life has fled,
       And the jealous curtains close
       Round the passionless repose
         Of the silent dead.

     Plod, plod, plod away,
       Step by step in mouldering moss;
     Thick branches bar the day
       Over languid streams that cross
         Softly, slowly, with a sound
       In their aimless creeping
       Like a smothered weeping,
         Through the enchanted ground.

     "Yield, yield, yield thy quest,"
       Whispers through the woodland deep;
     "Come to me and be at rest;
       "I am slumber, I am sleep."
         Then the weary feet would fail,
       But the never-daunted will
       Urges "Forward, forward still!
         "Press along the trail!"

     Breast, breast, breast the slope!
       See, the path is growing steep.
     Hark! a little song of hope
       When the stream begins to leap.
         Though the forest, far and wide,
       Still shuts out the bending blue,
       We shall finally win through,
         Cross the long divide.

     On, on, onward tramp!
       Will the journey never end?
     Over yonder lies the camp;
       Welcome waits us there, my friend.
         Can we reach it ere the night?
       Upward, upward, never fear!
       Look, the summit must be near;
         See the line of light!

     Red, red, red the shine
       Of the splendour in the west,
     Glowing through the ranks of pine,
       Clear along the mountain-crest!
         Long, long, long the trail
       Out of sorrow's lonely vale;
       But at last the traveller sees
         Light between the trees!

     March, 1904.