The shapes had all vanished; and the king, again lifting up his eyes, saw but the wall of his own chamber, on which flickered the Shadow of a Little Child. He looked down, and there, sitting on a stool by the fire, he saw one of his own little ones, waiting to say good-night to his father, and go to bed early, that he might rise early too, and be very good and happy all Christmas-day. And Ralph Rinkelmann rejoiced that he was a man, and not a Shadow. But as the Shadows vanished they left the sense of song in the king's brain. And the words of their song must have been something like these:-- "Shadows, Shadows, Shadows all! Shadow birth and funeral! Shadow moons gleam overhead; Over shadow-graves we tread. Shadow-hope lives, grows, and dies. Shadow-love from shadow-eyes Shadow-ward entices on To shadow-words on shadow-stone, Closing up the shadow-tale With a shadow-shadow-wail. "Shadow-man, thou art a gloom Cast upon a shadow-tomb Through the endless shadow air, From the shadow sitting there, On a moveless shadow-throne, Glooming through the ages gone; North and south, and in and out, East and west, and all about, Flinging Shadows everywhere On the shadow-painted air Shadow-man, thou hast no story; Nothing but a shadow-glory." But Ralph Rinkelmann said to himself,-- "They are but Shadows that sing thus; for a Shadow can see but Shadows. A man sees a man where a Shadow sees only a Shadow." And he was comforted in himself. End of Project Gutenberg's Cross Purposes and The Shadows, by George MacDonald