John Oxenham

The Shadow

   Shapeless and grim,
   A Shadow dim
   O’erhung the ways,
   And darkened all my days.
   And all who saw,
   With bated breath,
   Said, “It is Death!”
 
   And I, in weakness
   Slipping towards the Night,
   In sore affright
   Looked up. And lo!—
   No Spectre grim,
   But just a dim
   Sweet face,
   A sweet high mother-face,
   A face like Christ’s Own Mother’s face,
   Alight with tenderness
   And grace.
 
   “Thou art not Death!” I cried;—
   For Life’s supremest fantasy
   Had never thus envisaged Death to me;—
   “Thou art not Death, the End!”
 
   In accents winning,
   Came the answer,—"Friend,
   There is no Death!
   I am the Beginning,
  —Not the End!”
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