The Shadow
John Boyle O'Reilly
1844 to 1890
There is a shadow on the sunny wall,
Dark and forbidding, like a bode of ill;
Go, drive it thence. Alas, such shadows fall
From real things, nor may be moved at will.
There is a shadow on my heart to-day,
A cloudy grief condensing to a tear:
Alas, I cannot drive its gloom away—
Some sin or sorrow casts the shapeless fear.
John Boyle O'Reilly's The Shadow
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