VII.

SILENCE.

THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush'd-no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

VIII.

THE curse of Adam, the old curse of all,
Though I inherit in this feverish life
Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,
And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall,
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall
I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife.
Then what was Man's lost Paradise!-how rife
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!
Such as our own pure passion still might frame,
Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs,
If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs ;-
But oh! as many and such tears are ours,
As only should be shed for guilt and shame!

IX.

LOVE, dearest Lady, such as I would speak
Lives not within the humor of the eye ;—
Not being but an outward phantasy,

That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,-
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer,—and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,

Unlike the love which I would give and seek:
Whose health is of no hue-to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;
Its bough owns no December and no May,
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.