Light Between the Trees

Long, long, long the trail

 Through the brooding forest-gloom,

Down the shadowy, lonely vale

 Into silence, like a room

   Where the light of life has fled,

 And the jealous curtains close

 Round the passionless repose

   Of the silent dead.

Plod, plod, plod away,

 Step by step in mouldering moss;

Thick branches bar the day

 Over languid streams that cross

   Softly, slowly, with a sound

 In their aimless creeping

 Like a smothered weeping,

   Through the enchanted ground.

"Yield, yield, yield thy quest,"

 Whispers through the woodland deep;

"Come to me and be at rest;

 "I am slumber, I am sleep."

   Then the weary feet would fail,

 But the never-daunted will

 Urges "Forward, forward still!

   "Press along the trail!"

Breast, breast, breast the slope!

 See, the path is growing steep.

Hark! a little song of hope

 When the stream begins to leap.

   Though the forest, far and wide,

 Still shuts out the bending blue,

 We shall finally win through,

   Cross the long divide.

On, on, onward tramp!

 Will the journey never end?

Over yonder lies the camp;

 Welcome waits us there, my friend.

   Can we reach it ere the night?

 Upward, upward, never fear!

 Look, the summit must be near;

   See the line of light!

Red, red, red the shine

 Of the splendour in the west,

Glowing through the ranks of pine,

 Clear along the mountain-crest!

   Long, long, long the trail

 Out of sorrow's lonely vale;

 But at last the traveller sees

   Light between the trees!