"The Pathway of Souls"

The Pathway of Souls

The lonely midnight, deep and still, 

Pressed hard upon the sea; 

Up came the moon above the hill, 

Slowly and silently. 

No voice, no step, no sound I heard, 

No early chanticleer; 

Not even a murmur of the frogs 

Dreaming within the mere. 

No star was lit in the near sky, 

No lamp on earth below; 

But o’er the purple water led 

A path as white as snow. 

One softest wind blew from the hill 

And shook into my room, 

A flower from a locust tree 

And a locust flower’s perfume. 

 

And then with open eyes I saw 

A flight of eerie things, 

And then with listening ears I heard 

A rush of eerie wings. 

And of a sudden then I knew 

Why all was still and white: 

The dead had visited the earth 

Along that path of light. 

"The Pathway of Souls" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).