When I was young, I traveled round the world,
As all adventurers are wont to do,
And noticed a most curious occurrence
That, as I went, still curiouser grew.
In London as I hailed a passing taxi
And glanced around to see whom I might meet,
I saw a ghostly man and his companion
Command a ghostly cabby, “Baker Street!”
I stood and marveled at the Colosseum,
Still more at what I seemed, alone, to hear—
The cheering crowds, the roaring of the lions,
And witnesses who perished without fear.
On Normandy the silenced guns were pounding
As dogfights long-complete raged overhead;
Within the forests echoed satyrs’ dancing
And revelers that, ‘ere I found them, fled.
I’m sure I saw a flash of Lincoln colors
And heard afar a never-ending duel;
Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms still write their music;
The shadowy knights await King Arthur’s rule.
Upon a tower no one else could enter,
Within a city no one else could see,
I heard the chink and clang of silver armor
And saw the branches of a withered tree.
The North Wind’s voice to my ear was not silent,
The Wardrobe’s door to my hand was not drawn,
And in the next room of an English mansion
Elizabeth and Darcy bantered on.
I glimpsed a red-haired family disappearing
From King’s Cross station in the school-time crowd;
I heard the ring of Reformation’s hammer
And saw the German princes as they bowed.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is still elusive,
And Miss Clavel still runs the boarding-school;
Each Jew the Ten Booms hid still lives in safety;
The fleas still play each guardsman for a fool.
I travelled South and crossed an endless desert,
And East, and saw the dust of Mongol hordes,
And many times I heard the noise of battle
And, passing, saw the flashing glint of swords.
The Rostov home for wounded men is open,
The Red Sea still is parted shore-to-shore,
The Flying Dutchman never rounds the headlands,
And Krakow’s trumpet sounds forevermore.
I noted, ‘mid the Transylvanian snowfall,
The faithful band that wrought the Count’s defeat;
At Salamis I heard the battle-clamor
As stalwart Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet.
I stood among the storied Trojan ruins
And saw encamped the great Achaean throng;
I sailed afar and heard the echoing cannons
And, deadly-sweet, the lure of siren-song.
Within the sea the Nautilus still wanders,
And Moby-Dick evades grim Ahab’s wrath;
Upon the ships toward Ellis Island’s welcome
So many take the Lady’s torch-lit path.
The Indians and Pilgrims are yet feasting,
And Daniel Boone still guards Kentucky’s folk;
I saw the slaves rejoice in rightful freedom;
In Gettysburg I smelt the acrid smoke.
The steel-boats still motor down to Cleveland;
In Kitty Hawk the pilot craft still flies;
Within the stormy clouds I heard the voices
Of ghostly cowboys riding through the skies.
I laughed at Anne and Gilbert as they argued;
I saw the Forty-Niners pan for gold;
The loyal pets are ever on their journey,
The sunken submarines still on patrol.
I stood upon the crossroads of a ghost town
And thought I heard the sounds of settlers’ lives;
I saw a man on lonely sagebrush ridges
And smiled that even now the Ranger rides.
Above I heard the migrant swans a-calling
And thought I caught a glimpse of glinting brass;
From East to West through wild, lonely country
I saw the shadowy Expedition pass.
I roamed the Rockies as the misty twilight
Made timbered valleys seem but passing myths
And saw afar a stern and weathered figure—
For Jeremiah Johnson ever lives.
Across the plains the prairie schooners sailing
Dissolve into the mist as they go past,
And down among the icy breakers rolling
Each dauntless captain rounds the Horn at last.
At Panama’s Canal I saw the swampland
That, drained, so lessened sickness and its price;
When ice-bound in the cruel Antarctic waters
I sought, and heard, brave Shackleton’s advice.
I twice descried on lonely islands outposts
Where Crusoe or the Robinsons hold fort;
The aircraft carriers are ever absent
From Pearl Harbor’s much-imperiled port.
Upon Japan the Air Corps still drops surplus
For liberated prisoners of war;
And once, among the thunder-clouds a-churning
I saw the regal phantom dragons soar.
I glimpsed, beyond the sunlight’s glare, a soldier
Forever watchful, manning the Great Wall;
The sight of caravans of silks and spices
In drifting desert sand I yet recall.
The Phoenix ever rises from the ashes;
Young Mowgli still is fostered by the wolves;
The Orient Express is yet a crime-scene:
Poirot, that strangely guiltless murder solves.
The motley escapees still cross the Gobi,
And Hillary still stands on Everest;
Good Amy Carmichael still helps the children;
I saw the Ark upon the mountain rest.
I saw the Fertile Crescent in its zenith
Still fixed as the proud crossroads of the land,
Admired Babylon’s great Hanging Gardens,
And heard the still, small voice in Sinai’s sand.
I watched the shepherd boy defeat Goliath,
On Carmel saw the heavenly fire descend;
I heard the echoes of the Hebrew trumpets,
Saw Jacob’s Ladder to the Throne ascend.
Afar I heard—it set my spirit longing—
The angels sing of glory and of peace;
I saw the healing, cleansing, and forgiving,
Partook of that divine and wondrous feast.
Then up to David’s Citadel I travelled;
I heard the cheers, the strife, the treachery;
And, with the awed centurion confessing,
I witnessed Jesus’ death on Calvary.
I felt the tremors, saw the daylight darkened,
And knew, and prayed, and hoped outside the grave;
And at the dawn the seal of death was broken—
The King, triumphant, rose, my life to save.
And then I saw what gift I had been given
The glimpses I had heard, and seen, and known:
And should I live until this world’s ending
I never shall forget what I was shown.
Reference Explanations for “Shades of Stories, Shards of Time”
[Arabic numerals refer to stanza numbers]
The poem has 33 stanzas, a reference to the 33 cantos of Dante’s Divine Comedy
1 – Use of the word “curiouser” is a nod to the quote “Curiouser and curiouser!” from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
2 – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson “who never lived and so will never die” (Arthur Conan Doyle)
3 – Christians martyred under the Roman emperors (Eusebius’s The Church History)
4 – D-Day invasion of Normandy Beach by the Allied Forces in WW2
“Dogfights” is a term used for fighter plane duels
General Greco-Roman mythology (Ovid’s Metamorphoses)/Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis) reference
Oblique nod to Mirkwood elves in The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
5 – Lincoln-green is the color worn by Robin Hood’s outlaws
Robin Hood and Little John, Ivanhoe and Gilbert, or any other historical or literary duel
Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig von Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms were possibly the three most influential composers of Western Art Music
The Round Table knights, or any others; it is said that King Arthur will return one day to rule Britain
6 – The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) was somewhat modeled on Western Civilization
Gondorian soldiers, especially Citadel Guards, wore silver armor
The White Tree was withered for a millennium-and-a-half before the Return of the King
7 – The main character and door to Paradise from George McDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind
The titular wardrobe and door to Narnia from C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The heroine and hero from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
8 – The Weasley family from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Platform 9 ¾ from the same
Martin Luther nailing the 95 Thesis to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation
Events surrounding the presentation of the Augsburg Confession to the Holy Roman Emperor in 1530
9 – The main character from Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel and sequels
The school-marm from Ludwig Bemelmans’s Madeline children’s book series
The Ten Booms hid Jews from the Nazis in Holland (Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place)
In the concentration camp Ravensbruck, Corrie held Bible studies uninterrupted by the guards due to the flea-infestation of the dormitories
10 – Eventually the Sahara; also, the world of The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis) was somewhat modeled after Western Civilization, and there is a wide desert immediately south of Narnia
Raiding tribes from the Far East (The Travels of Marco Polo)
Any of history’s many battles
11 – Location and circumstance from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Phenomenon surrounding the flight of the Israelites from Egypt in the biblical book of Exodus
Legendary ghost ship that forever strives to round the Cape of Good Hope
Polish legend of the Trumpeter of Krakow
12 – The defeat and death of Count Dracula (Bram Stoker’s Dracula)
Last battle of the Persian Wars (Herodotus’s The Histories)
13 – Circumstances immediately preceding the fall of Troy (Homer’s Iliad, and others)
Any of many sea-battles, particularly the events of Master and Commander (Patrick O’Brian)
Various legends, including those recorded in Homer’s Odyssey
14 – Submarine of Jules Verne’s Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The white whale and whale-boat captain arch-rivals of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick
Large numbers of foreigners immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island’s customs office, particularly in the early 1900s
The Statue of Liberty in the mouth of the Hudson River holds a torch that symbolically lights the way to Ellis Island and freedom
15 – Circumstances surrounding the First Thanksgiving, in common American consciousness
Outdoorsman and early adventurer and settler in the wilds of Kentucky
The African-Americans held in slavery in the southern United States were freed first by the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln and then by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution
The Battle of Gettysburg is often considered the turning-point of the American Civil War
16 – Common historical occurrence; also, a reference to Gordon Lightfoot’s song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The Wright brothers constructed the first functional airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Reference to Johnny Cash‘s song Ghost Riders in the Sky
17 – The heroine and hero of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables book series
Prospectors who rushed to California in 1849 to mine for gold
The main “characters” of Sheila Burnford‘s The Incredible Journey
The U.S. Navy refers to sunken submarines not as “lost at sea” but as “still on patrol”
18 – Abandoned western towns, often due to a failed or moved railroad line or a mine stripped of ore
The Lone Ranger of American Western folklore
19 – Reference to the titular “character” and instrument of E.B. White’s Trumpet of the Swan
The Lewis and Clark exploratory expedition through the Louisiana Purchase (Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage)
20 – Legendary American mountain man; “Maybe he’s dead…Maybe he never will be.”
21 – Covered wagons were called “prairie schooners” because their white tops looked like ships’ sails
After the Panama Canal was dug, “rounding the Horn” (Cape Horn) became less a trade-route necessity and more an opportunity for a sea-captain to show his and his crew’s prowess
22 – Malaria and yellow fever were effectively contained during the building of the canal by such measures
Captain of the unsuccessful 1914-1917 South Pole expedition; “Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”
23 – Titular wrecked-on-deserted-island characters from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Johann David Wyss’s Swiss Family Robinson
The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was far less crippling to the American Pacific fleet than the Japanese intended due to the absence from port, and thus escape from destruction, of all three aircraft carriers
24 – After Japan’s surrender, the Army Air Corps air-lifted a surplus of supplies on the starving prison-camps
Dragons are symbolic in Chinese culture
25 – The Great Wall of China was built as a defense against the Mongols (the same hordes as in Stanza 10)
Caravans crossed the many deserts to bring silk and spices to the lucrative European markets
26 – Mythological bird that dies in flame and is reborn
The main character from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book
The titular location and crime, and beloved main character, from Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express
27 – The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom describes the escape of a group of six from the Siberian labor-camps that involved crossing the Gobi Desert
Edmund Hillary was the first mountaineer to summit Mt. Everest
Amy Carmichael was a Christian missionary to children, especially abandoned girls, in India
Noah’s Ark, from the biblical book of Genesis, came to rest on the Mountains of Ararat
28 – The Fertile Crescent stretched from Mesopotamia north to Damascus and South again through the Jordan Valley
Damascus in particular served as the cross-roads of the ancient world
The Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but no one really knows what they looked like
From the biblical book of 1 Kings, when God speaks to Elijah at Sinai not in a thunderstorm, a fire, or an earthquake, but in a “still, small voice”
29 – From the biblical book of 1 Samuel, shepherd boy and future king David defeats giant Goliath with a sling and kills him with his own sword
From the biblical book of 1 Kings, Elijah poses a “contest” to the prophets of Baal as to which god can bring down fire from heaven; unsurprisingly, the true God wins
From the biblical book of Joshua, the Israelites collapse the walls of Jericho with God’s help by shouting and blowing trumpets
From the biblical book of Genesis, Jacob has a dream that depicts a stairway stretching up to God’s throne in heaven, with angels ascending and descending
30 – From the Gospels, the angels at Jesus’ birth sang, “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace…”
From the Gospels, Jesus’ earthly ministry included many such miracles
From the Gospels, the institution of the Lord’s Supper
31 – Due to the topography of the region, travelers have to ascend to get to Jerusalem, the City of David
From the Gospels, Holy Week was punctuated with such occurrences
From the Gospels, the centurion confessed Jesus’ divinity after his death at the foot of the cross
The pivotal event of the Gospels, all of Scripture, and all of time
32 – From the Gospels, the events of the Crucifixion and Resurrection included earthquakes and darkened sky
From the Gospels, Jesus was buried in a tomb between Friday evening and Sunday morning
The seal of death refers to: the fact that Jesus was dead, the Roman seal Pilate placed on the tomb, and the otherwise-unbreakable hold of death on the world as a whole
Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Life who died as a ransom for sinners and rose to bring them to life again