Speed on, speed on, good master, the camp lies far away We must cross the haunted valley before the close of day How the snowblight came upon me I'll tell you as we go Of the blight of the shadow hunter who walks the midnight snow
Through the cold December heavens came the pale moon and the stars And the yellow sun was sinking behind the purple bars The snow lay deeply drifted upon the ridges drear That lay for miles around me and the camp for which we steer
So silent lay the hillside beside the solemn wood No sound of life or motion to break this solitude Save the waving of a loose bird with its plaintive note so low The skating of a red leaf across the frozen snow
Said I, The dark is falling and far the camp must be But my heart it would be lighter if I had but company Then I sang and I shouted, keeping measure as I tread To the harp twang of my snowshoes as they sprang beneath my tread
Far into that valley had I made my lonely way When a dusky figure joined me in a capuchon of grey Then I sprang on my snowshoes with a long and limber stride I hailed the dusky stranger as we traveled side by side
No token of communion gave he by word or look And a fear chill gathered over me at the crossing of the brook For I saw by the sickly moonlight as I followed bending low That the footsteps of the stranger left no marks upon the snow
A fear chill gathered over me, like a shroud upon me cast As I sank upon a snowdrift where the shadow hunter passed And the other travelers found me just before the break of day My dark hair blanched and whitened as the snow in which I lay
They spoke not as they raised me, for they knew that in the night I had met the shadow hunter, I had withered in his blight Sancta Maria speed us, the sun is sinking low Before us lies the valley of the walker of the snow