The St. Mary Banner

In the Shadow Lands

Lucinda's life's a peaceful one, apart

His voice is like the murmur of the summer breeze that's sweet

No prattling voices come to mar her quiet and content:

No tiny feet romp up and down, no eager dimpled hands

Are clutching at her fingers where she sits in shadow lands.

In shadow lands she sits alone, there in her quiet room-

Nay, not alone, for faces come before her in the gloom,

And on her hand she feels a palm, she hears a whisper low-

A visitor comes back again from out the long ago.

She stands beside the garden gate where blushing roses cling.

She listens to the murmur of the brook's soft caroling:

But sweeter than all other sounds a rapt voice whispers low-

A visitor come back again from out the long ago.

With perfume of the roses there in riot at her feet:

He's bending o'er the garden gate, his face is all aglow-

Until she gently lifts her head and coyly whispers "No."

The firelight is gleaming there along the polished floor-

Lucinda's dreaming of those days, mistaken days of yore.

Here all is quietness and ease, peace reigns here all content.

A spinster's heaven where she dreams of life's old sentiment.

A step falls soft upon the porch, a tap falls on her ears:

Both come to her as echoes come from out the vanished years.

Then swift away the shadows glide, tho room is all aglow-

A visitor has come again from out the long ago.

-H. S. Keller, in New York Times