Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse

The Walker of the Snow

Charles Dawson Shanly (1811–1875)

SPEED on, speed on, good Master!

The camp lies far away;

We must cross the haunted valley

Before the close of day.

How the snow-blight came upon me

I will tell you as we go,

The blight of the Shadow Hunter

Who walks the midnight snow.

To the cold December heaven

Came the pale moon and the stars,

As the yellow sun was sinking

Behind the purple bars.

The snow was deeply drifted

Upon the ridges drear

That lay for miles between me

And the camp for which we steer.

’Twas silent on the hill-side

And by the sombre wood,

No sound of life or motion

To break the solitude,

Save the wailing of the moose-bird

With a plaintive note and low,

And the skating of the red leaf

Upon the frozen snow.

And I said, ‘Though dark is falling

And far the camp must be,

Yet my heart it would be lightsome

If I had but company.’

And then I sang and shouted,

Keeping measure as I sped,

To the harp-twang of the snowshoe

As it sprang beneath my tread.

Nor far into the valley

Had I dipped upon my way

When a dusky figure joined me,

In a capuchon of grey,

Bending upon the snowshoes

With a long and limber stride;

And I hailed the dusky stranger

As we travelled side by side.

But no token of communion

Gave he by word or look,

And the fear-chill fell upon me

At the crossing of the brook.

For I saw by the sickly moonlight,

As I followed, bending low,

That the walking of the stranger

Left no footmarks on the snow.

Then the fear-chill gathered o’er me

Like a shroud around me cast,

As I sank upon the snow-drift

Where the Shadow Hunter passed.

And the otter-trappers found me

Before the break of day,

With my dark hair blanched and whitened

As the snow in which I lay.

But they spoke not as they raised me;

For they knew that in the night

I had seen the Shadow Hunter,

And had withered in his blight.

Sancta Maria, speed us!

The sun is falling low;

Before us lies the valley

Of the Walker of the Snow!