Shadow by Robin Hyde
Hear me whisper, whisper to you
Through these empty rooms,
See my dress in the ripple
Of the shot-silk evening glooms,
Think my hands on the spinet
When a quiet breeze stirs
And a tortured phoenix evening
Burns in the brooding firs.
See my face lifted to you again
Praying for some small boon
Less to your clear endeavour
Than the white jest of the moon.
Dead world, dead lady,
And your own heart a-dying …
Hush … turn away swiftly …
It’s not I you hear crying.
In Shadowland by Joseph Paton
Between the moaning of the mountain stream
And the hoarse thunder of the Atlantic deep,
An outcast from the peaceful realms of sleep
I lie, and hear as in a fever-dream
The homeless night-wind in the darkness scream
And wail around the inaccessible steep
Down whose gaunt sides the spectral torrents leap
From crag to crag, – till almost I could deem
The plaided ghosts of buried centuries
Were mustering in the glen with bow and spear
And shadowy hounds to hunt the shadowy deer,
Mix in phantasmal sword-play, or, with eyes
Of wrath and pain immortal, wander o’er
Loved scenes where human footstep comes no more.
The Kingdom of Shadows by Clark Ashton Smith
A crownless king who reigns alone,
I live within this ashen land,
Where winds rebuild from wandering sand
My columns and my crumbled throne.
My sway is on the men that were,
And wan sweet women, dear and dead;
Beside a marble queen, my bed
Is made within this sepulcher.
In gardens desolate to the sun,
Faring alone, I sigh to find
The dusty closes, dim and blind,
Where winter and the spring are one.
My shadowy visage,grey with grief,
In sunken waters walled with sand,
I see- where all mine ancient land
Lies yellow like an autumn leaf.
My silver lutes of subtle string,
Are rust- but on the grievous breeze
I hear what sobbing memories,
And muted sorrows murmuring!
Across the broken monuments,
Memorial of the dreams of old,
The sunset flings a ghostly gold
To mock mine ancient affluence.
About the tombs of stone and brass,
The silver lights of evening flee;
And slowly now, and solemnly,
I see the pomp of shadows pass.
Often, beneath some fervid moon,
With splendid spells I vainly strive
Dead loves imperial to revive,
And speak a heart-remembered rune-
But, ah, the lovely phantoms fail,
The faces fade to mist and light,
The vermeil lips of my delight
Are dim, the eyes are ashen-pale.
A crownless king who reigns alone,
I live within this ashen land,
Where winds rebuild from wandering sand
My columns and my crumbled throne.
The Village Street by Edgar Allan Poe
In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,,
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches
To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night’s irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas;
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
’Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past,
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered,
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night’s first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!
And, O soul, forget thy dreams!
Shadows by Sara Teasdale
We saw our shadows walking before us
Etched on the hard sand, flat and grey,
The last thin edge of the waves crept near us,
The autumn sunshine tried to be gay.
Chained to the shadows our bodies made there
Slowly we walked in the dwindling light;
Our shadows faded, like wraiths we wandered
With the dark sea booming into the night.
Wall Shadows by Carl Sandburg
These walls they knew those shadows
Who moved then as shadows holding bones,
Lights and tongues spread over bones.
Now with those shadows gone from these walls
Do these walls ever say, “When we try, we can remember these shadows?”
In The Shadows by Leah Bodine Drake
As we went up the narrow stair,
My candle slim and I,
From the crouching shadows came
A little tired sigh.
And there was nothing on the stair
Or in my garret room
But cobwebs on the rafters
And corners filled with gloom.
And still and silent was the house
And dark and still the air…
But where the shadows wavered
In the candle-flare,
Something small, unearthly, sighed
Out of some strange despair.
The Shadow on the Wall by Mary C. Landon
The child was suddenly hushed, and the weeper,
For into the black-beamed house
A footfall came and a silence deeper
Than still of a gold-eyed mouse.
The clock said 12, but the hands were stopped;
‘Twas one to the dawn and four
From the midnight hour the ring had dropped
Down to the black-beamed floor.
Nobody knew but the still child that
The candles were ladies tall
And the spitting fire a Maltese cat,
And the shadow on the wall…
The People Of The Shadow Street by Joseph Ignatius Constantine Clarke
Ah, long and narrow is Shadow Street,
Where the sunlight never can fall;
Whose mile after mile can but repeat
The crumbling house and the broken wall;
The marsh beyond and the cypress trees
A misty veil and a sombre pall.
Over its lichened pavements, see
The people of Shadow Street creep,
They seem so like unto you and me,
As they stare or frown or weep;
But they’re something more or something less,
And their eyes are dim as with sleep.
They think they are live and wide awake,
They are busy with dreams long dead.
Their hurrying feet no progress make,
And their clocks tell time that has fled.
They are planning the triumphs of yesterday,
They are coining the words long said.
They toil and moil, they rhyme and they sing;
But none of the other takes heed.
Their hopes are ravens on weary wing
That out of their hearts they feed:
Each man and woman in twilight blur
Clasps tightly a mildewed weed.
This corner house on the Market Square
Is the place where they first abide.
They climb one morn up its creaking stair,
And by dusk steal out at the side.
They come, pushed out of the pulsing town,
And so into Shadow Street glide.
From house after house, from day to day,
They move when the night has paled;
Thin and grizzled and farther away,
And by many a pang assailed.
They pass at last neath the cypress trees,
And they never know they have failed.
Shadow March by Robert Louis Stevenson
All round the house is the jet-black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogie in my hair;
And all round the candle the crooked shadows come,
And go marching along up the stair.
The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed—
All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead.
Darkling, I Listen 