Canto XXII
The path by which we twain did go,Which led by tracts that pleased us well,Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell,From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer’d the way,And crown’d with all the season lent,From April on to April went,And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk’d beganTo slant the fifth autumnal slope,As we descended following Hope,There sat the Shadow fear’d of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,And spread his mantle dark and cold;And wrapped thee formless in the fold,And dull’d the murmur on thy lip;
And bore thee where I could not seeNor follow, tho’ I walk in haste;And think that, somewhere in the waste,The Shadow sits and waits for me.