Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange above all, thy length of tress,

And this all solemn silentness !

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

As it is lasting, so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,

For her may some tall vault unfold--
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone----
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

It was the dead who groaned within.

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 two-fold 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 clf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

(101)

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

TAKE this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--

You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I can not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?