SONNET: SILENCE.

THERE are some qualities-some incorporate things, That have a double life, which thus is made

A type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

There is a twofold Silence-sea and shore

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

THE CONQUEROR WORM.

Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

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A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama-oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes !-it writhes!-with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out-out are the lights-out all !

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy "Man,"

And its hero the Conqueror Worm."

THE HAUNTED PALACE.

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace

Radiant palace-reared its head.

In the monarch Thought's dominion

It stood there !

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,

(This-all this-was in the olden

Time long ago);

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A winged odour went away.