Poems (Eckley)/Through the Tunnel

by Sophia May Eckley

THROUGH THE TUNNEL. "Yea! though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

OW black is the darkness,
 How sullen the gloom—
The train's solemn thunder,
 Through the tunnel's drear tomb;
The eye cannot pierce it,
 Though the eye is awake;
Vain are her efforts,
 The death-gloom to break.

Fierce sparks and cinders
 Now shiver the gloom;
Tho' this be but transient
 In the tunnel's black tomb;
'Tis the valley of shadows—
 "The shadow of death,"
Tho' awake we pass through it,
 Tho' living—in breath.

Not so in that valley
 The Psalmist passed through,
"With the rod and the staff,"
 Still his comfort anew;
Not so when the heart
 Is hush'd under the sod,
And calm the soul sleeps
 In the bosom of God.

But awake, we speed thro'
 This valley of death,
The spirit still chained in
 Its prison of breath.
How black is the darkness!
 How sullen the gloom!
The train's solemn thunder,
 Through the tunnel's drear tomb.