The Shadow
One sunny day a child went Maying—
When lo, while ’mid the zephyrs playing,
He saw his shadow at his back!
He turned and fled, but on his track
The seeming goblin came apace,
And step for step gave deadly chase!
Weary at last, with desperate might
The urchin paused and faced the fright,
When lo, the demon, thin and gray,
Faded amid the grass away!
’Tis thus in life—when shadows chase,
If we but meet them face to face,
What seemed a fiend in fear arrayed,
Sinks at our feet a harmless shade.
Peter Parley.