Sun And Shade Poem by Isabella Varley Banks

In the summer sunshine
Lilian swings at ease,
In a silken hammock
'Neath umbrageous trees.
Fairest, sweetest blossom
In that bower of bloom,
Care hath never found her,
Naught she knows of gloom,
Scarce has felt the rippling
Of her life's clear stream;
hers the listless languor
Of a first love-dream.

In the sombre midnight
Dora droops alone,
Past and present weighted
By a slab of stone.
In her cheerless attic,
Whence e'en hope hath fled,
Drearily since dawning
Stitching for her bread,
Plying thread and needle
With unflagging speed,
Till they drop unbidden
And she rests indeed.

Shadow and sunshine, light and shade,
Were twinned when day and night were made;
Laughter and weeping, pain and mirth,
Track each other over the earth;
And not till night and day are done
Shall we know the 'wherefore' of shade or sun.