Shadow march | All around the house is the jet-black night

All around the house is the jet‑black...

Language: English

All around the house is the jet-black night;
  It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
  And it moves with the moving flame.

Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum,
  With the breath of the Bogies in my hair;
And all around the candle the crooked shadows come,
  And go marching along up the stair.

The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
  The shadow of the child that goes to bed --
All the wicked shadows coming tramp, tramp, tramp,
  With the black night overhead.

About the headline (FAQ)

First published in Magazine of Art, March 1884

Text Authorship:

by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "Shadow march", appears in A Child's Garden of Verses, in Northwest Passage, no. 2 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Mark Andrews (1875 - 1939), "Shadow march", published 1911 [ voice and piano ], from Nine songs from "A Child's Garden of Verse" [sung text not yet checked]
by Norman Gilbert (b. 1912), "Shadow march", published 1953 [ unison chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Maria Herz (1878 - 1950), "Shadow March", published 1910 [ voice and piano ], from Two Songs, no. 2, London : Stainer & Bell [sung text not yet checked]
by Mabel Wood Hill (1870 - 1954), "Shadow march", published c1902 [ voice and piano ], from Seven songs of Stevenson, no. 1, Cincinnati: J. Church Co. [sung text not yet checked]
by George Rathbone (1874 - ?), "Shadow march", published 1923 [ unison children's chorus or women's chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Teresa del Riego (c1876 - 1968), "Shadow march", published 1909 [ voice and piano ], from Children's pictures [sung text not yet checked]
by Alec Rowley (1892 - 1958), "Shadow march", published 1963 [ unison children's chorus or women's chorus and piano ], from Monsieur de la plume [sung text not yet checked]
by Arthur Somervell, Sir (1863 - 1937), "Going to bed", published 1903 [ SATB quartet with piano ], from Wind Flowers, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ronald Stevenson (b. 1928), "Shadow march", 1961 [ medium voice and piano ], from Four Robert Louis Stevenson Songs [sung text not yet checked]
by Muriel Thomas , "Shadow march", published 1957 [ medium unison chorus and piano ], from Four songs for children, also set in Welsh (translation by Wil Ifan) [sung text not yet checked]
by John Brown Russell Whitfield , "Shadow march", published 1958 [ unison chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Luigi Zaninelli (b. 1932), "Shadow march", published 1962 [ SSA chorus and piano or instrumental ensemble ], from The world is so full [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-12-07
Line count: 12
Word count: 96