To the Shadowy Land
by Thomas Sarsfield Carter
To the shadowy land--to the shadowy land,
We nearer, nearer go;
Like a gallant barque thro' the midnight dark,
O'er the ocean's billowy flow.
O'er the surging tide of stormy life,
'Fore the hurricane breath of Fate,
We rush with a speed that is lightning indeed,
To Eternity's ebony gate.
By the breath of Prosperity wafted serene,
From billow to billow we wing;
Till shooting afar like the meteor-star,
To the realms of ether we spring.
Or lashed by Adversity's arrowy wind,
We draggle athro' the fierce surge;
Till weary and worn, grief-laden, forlorn,
We sink on Eternity's verge.
To the shadowy land--to the shadowy land,
Be the day brightly flashing or dark,
We are hurrying on, with no harbour but one
To shelter the storm-shattered barque!
I know practically nothing about Carter, but in preface of the Hours of Illness (1870), in which this poem is found, he notes that the poems in the book were all written around the age of seventeen or so when he was confined to "the rather unpoetic and dreary atmosphere of a sick-chamber"; he was trying the relieve the monotony of an incurable illness.
