Explore "The Golden Legend" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The ABBOT ERNESTUS pacing to and fro.
ABBOT. / Slowly, slowly up the wall / Steals the sunshine, steals the shade; / Evening damps begin to fall, / Evening shadows are displayed. / Round me, o'er me, everywhere, / All the sky is grand with clouds, / And athwart the evening air / Wheel the swallows home in crowds. / Shafts of sunshine from the west / Paint the dusky windows red; / Darker shadows, deeper rest, / Underneath and overhead. / Darker, darker, and more wan, / In my breast the shadows fall; / Upward steals the life of man, / As the sunshine from the wall. / From the wall into the sky, / From the roof along the spire; / Ah, the souls of those that die / Are but sunbeams lifted higher.