{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/light-between-the-trees",
 "title": "Light Between the Trees",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 21,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Long, long, long the trail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the brooding forest-gloom,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Down the shadowy, lonely vale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into silence, like a room",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the light of life has fled,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the jealous curtains close",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Round the passionless repose",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the silent dead.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Plod, plod, plod away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Step by step in mouldering moss;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick branches bar the day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over languid streams that cross",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Softly, slowly, with a sound",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a smothered weeping,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In their aimless creeping",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through enchanted ground.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Yield, yield, yield thy quest,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whispers through the woodland deep;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Come to me and be at rest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am slumber, I am sleep.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the weary feet would fail,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "But the never-daunted will",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Urges “Forward, forward still!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Press along the trail!”",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Breast, breast, breast the slope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See, the path is growing steep.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hark! a little song of hope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the stream begins to leap.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Though the forest, far and wide,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Still shuts out the bending blue,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We shall finally win through,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Cross the long divide.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On, on, on we tramp!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will the journey never end?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Over yonder lies the camp;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Welcome waits us there, my friend.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Can we reach it ere the night?",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Upward, upward, never fear!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Look, the summit must be near;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "See the line of light!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Red, red, red the shine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the splendour in the west,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Glowing through the ranks of pine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear along the mountain-crest!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Long, long, long the trail",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of sorrow’s lonely vale;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But at last the traveller sees",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Light between the trees!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}