SHADE—SHADOW.
We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.—Job, viii. 9.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.—Psalm xci. 1.
I am gone like the shadow when it declineth.—Psalm cix. 23.
The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.—Psalm cxxi. 5.
It is a dial—which points out
The sunset as it moves about,
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of time’s flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.
Dr. Henry King.
Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial’s moral round;
With Hope Reflection blinds his sacred rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still the sport of some malignant Power,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
Wordsworth.
Between two breaths, what crowded mysteries lie,—
The first short gasp, the last and long drawn sigh!
Like phantoms painted on the magic slide,
Forth from the darkness of the past we glide,
As living shadows for a moment seen
In airy pageant on the eternal screen,
Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame,
Then seek the dust and stillness, whence we came.
O. W. Holmes.
This shadow on the dial’s face,
That steals, from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years away;
This shadow, which in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,
Hath held its course sublime:
What is it?—Mortal man!
It is the scythe of Time.
A shadow only to the eye,
It levels all beneath the sky.
Anon.