Poems (Douglas)/Shade and Sunshine

by Sarah Parker Douglas

Shade and Sunshine.

I closed the page: it was a tale of sadness,
 And, with its impress heavy on my heart,
Sat musing on life's hopes, and blights, and madness,
 Till twilight bade eve's lingering beams depart.
Dark and more dark night's shadows gathered round me,
 Filling the air with loneliness and gloom,
Till star rays twinkled through the mist, and found me
 A dreamer still within my noiseless room.

Autumnal breezes flitted moaning by me,
 As if some spirit's wail was on the air;
Whilst scenes of other times came sadly nigh me,
 By memory conjured from the days that were.
Yes, trodden grounds upon the past were gleaming
 Plain through the vista of departed years,
Each spot with old associations teeming
 Sunshine and shadow, happiness and tears.

Ah! what, I sighed, holds life that's worth pursuing?
 Surely existence seems a drear mistake;
That, that we would not, we are ever doing,
 Walking in slumber till some peril wake.
Finding the pathway of our blind selection
 Lost 'neath the darkness of the midnight skies;
Groping for outlet in each drear direction,
 Mourning life's one spring tide we did not prize.

Casting each rueful glance o'er moments wasted,
 In reaching fruit the far off branches bore;
Grasping the promised pleasure which, when tasted,
 Proved but the apples of the Dead Sea shore.
Alas! and is the gall and acid blended—
 The weary wanderings, disappointments, strife,
And vain regret?—all can be comprehended
 In the brief thing we fondly cling to—Life.

The morn's rich beams a roseate light was throwing
 O'er autumn's robe of richly varied hue,
The waving trees in green and gold were glowing,
 Glittering with gems of ruby tinted dew.
The wind-woke music of the leaves resembled
 The gentlest murmurs of far-distant seas,
As if a requiem on the glad air trembled
 For those borne earthward by the passing breeze.

Yet all around joy's spirit was prevailing,
 Whilst hope found rapturous and exulting wing,
And faith looked upward to that source unfailing
 For many a bliss, ere other leaves should spring.
The yellow grain o'er slope and plain extended,
 And cheerful labour was in joy begun,
With laugh and song the busy reaper bended
 His sickle glancing to the early sun.

The morn its genial influence imparted,
 And bade the soul's desponding shadows flee;
And, "Oh! forgive the weak, the thankless-hearted,"
 I cried, in spirit of the bended knee.
"Who could life's picture, in its darkness viewing,
 Divest it of its sunlight, flowers, and joy,
Kind Providence o'er all my path is strewing,
 Imparting shade but where bliss needs alloy?"