| |
| LO! through a shadowy valley | |
| March with measured step and tread | |
| A long array of Phantoms wan | |
| And pallid as the dead,— | |
| The white and waxen dead! | 5 |
| With a crown on every head, | |
| And a torch in every hand | |
| To fright the sheeted ghosts away | |
| That guard its portals night and day, | |
| They seek the Shadow-Land. | 10 |
| |
| On as the pale procession stalks, | |
| The clouds around divide, | |
| Raising themselves in giant shapes, | |
| And gazing down in pride | |
| On the spectres as they glide | 15 |
| Through the valley long and wide,— | |
| On the spectres all so pale | |
| In vestments whiter than the snow, | |
| As through the dim defile they go | |
| With melancholy wail. | 20 |
| |
| On tramps the funeral file; and now | |
| The weeping ones have passed, | |
| A throng succeeding, loftier | |
| And statelier than the last,— | |
| The Monarchs of the Past! | 25 |
| And upon the solemn blast, | |
| Wave their plumes and pennons high, | |
| And loud their mournful marches sweep | |
| Up from the valley dark and deep | |
| To the over-arching sky. | 30 |
| |
| And now the Cycle-buried years | |
| Stride on in stern array: | |
| Before each band the Centuries, | |
| With beards of silver gray, | |
| The Marshals of the Day, | 35 |
| In silence pass away; | |
| And behind them come the Hours | |
| And Minutes, who, as on they go, | |
| Are swinging steadily to and fro | |
| The incense round in showers. | 40 |
| |
| Behold the bier,—the ebony bier,— | |
| On sinewy shoulders borne, | |
| Of many a dim, forgotten Year | |
| From Primal Times forlorn. | |
| All weary and all worn, | 45 |
| With their ancient garments torn | |
| And their beards as white as Lear’s, | |
| Lo! how they tremble as they tread, | |
| Mourning above the marble dead, | |
| In agonies of tears! | 50 |
| |
| How very wan the old man looks! | |
| As wasted and as pale | |
| As some dim ghost of shadowy days | |
| In legendary tale. | |
| God give the sleeper hail! | 55 |
| And the world hath much to wail | |
| That his ears no more may hear; | |
| For, with his palms across his breast, | |
| He lieth in eternal rest | |
| Along his stately bier. | 60 |
| |
| How thin his hair! How white his beard! | |
| How waxen-like his hands, | |
| Which nevermore may turn the glass | |
| That on his bosom stands,— | |
| The glass whose solemn sands | 65 |
| Were won from Stygian strands! | |
| For his weary work is done, | |
| And he has reaped his latest field, | |
| And none that scythe of his can wield | |
| ’Neath the dim, descending sun. | 70 |
| |
| At last they reach the Shadow-Land, | |
| And with an eldritch cry | |
| The guardian ghost sweeps wailingly | |
| Athwart the troubled sky, | |
| Like meteors flashing by, | 75 |
| As asunder crashing fly, | |
| With a wild and clangorous din, | |
| The gates before the funeral train, | |
| Filing along the dreary plain | |
| And marching slowly in. | 80 |
| |
| Lo! ’t is a temple! and around | |
| Tall ebony columns rise | |
| Up from the withering earth, and bear | |
| Aloft the shrivelling skies, | |
| Where the tempest trembling sighs, | 85 |
| And the ghostly moonlight dies | |
| ’Neath a lurid comet’s glare, | |
| That over the mourners’ plumëd heads | |
| And on the Dead a lustre sheds | |
| From its crimson floating hair! | 90 |
| |
| The rites are read, the requiem sung; | |
| And as the echoes die, | |
| The Shadow Chaos rises | |
| With a wild unearthly cry,— | |
| A giant, to the sky! | 95 |
| His arms outstretched on high | |
| Over Time that dead doth lie; | |
| And with a voice that shakes the spheres, | |
| He shouts to the mourners mad with fears, | |
| “Depart! Lo! here am I!” | 100 |
| |
| Down, showering fire, the comet sweeps; | |
| Shivering the pillars fall; | |
| And lightning-like the red flames rush, | |
| A whirlwind, over all! | |
| And Silence spreads her pall, | 105 |
| Like pinions over the hall, | |
| Over the temple overthrown, | |
| Over the dying and the unburied dead; | |
| And, with a heavily-drooping head, | |
| Sits, statue-like, alone! | 110 |
| |
