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Home  »  Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Isa (Craig) Knox (1831–1903)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Poems. IX. Shadow

Isa (Craig) Knox (1831–1903)

IT falls before, it follows behind,

Darkest still when the day is bright;

No light without the shadow we find,

And never shadow without the light.

From our shadow we cannot flee away;

It walks when we walk, it runs when we run;

But it tells which way to look for the sun;

We may turn our backs on it any day.

Ever mingle the light and shade

That make this human world so dear;

Sorrow of joy is ever made,

And what were a hope without a fear?

A morning shadow o’er youth is cast,

Warning from pleasure’s dazzling snare;

A shadow lengthening across the past,

Fixes our fondest memories there.

One shadow there is, so dark, so drear,

So broad we see not the brightness round it;

Yet ’tis but the dark side of the sphere

Moving into the light unbounded.