Down the broad valley, fast and far
The troubled army fled;

Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,

Than an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentious through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice, nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.

And, when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,

The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar

The spectral camp is fled:

Faith shineth as a morning star,

Our ghastly fears are dead.

PHANTOMS.

ALL houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passage they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear:

He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands

And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense,
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

The perturbations, the perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high, Come from the influence of that unseen starThat undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon, from some dark gate of cloud, Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light, Across whose trembling plank our fancies crowd, Into the realms of mystery and night,

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Under our thoughts above the dark abyss.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair.

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly thro' the mists and vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funeral tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portals we call Death.