’Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore;

And coming events cast their shadows before.

Campbell: Lochiel’s Warning.

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.—Shelley: Defence of Poetry.

A similar form of expression occurs in Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, x. 1.


The wolfs long howl by Oonalaska’s shore.

Campbell: Pleasures of Hope.

Stolen from a line in an obscure poem called the Sentimental Sailor:—

The screaming eagle’s shriek that echoes wild,