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,

Time long ago,)

was in the olden

And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingéd odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically,

To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting,

(Porphyrogene !)

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing

And sparkling evɩmore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn !- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate !)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see1
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh but smile no more.

1 The MS, of this poem in the possession of Mrs. W. M. Griswold is incomplete beginning with the last line of Stanza III, and ending with line 4 of Stanza VI.

The only important variation is in line 2, Stanza VI., red-litten encrimsoned.

ED.

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 two-fold Silence

Body and soul.

sea and shore

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!

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast !

A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!"— but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast !

For, alas alas! with me

The light of Life is o'er !

"No more -no more no more (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar !

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams
In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.

THE CONQUEROR WORM.

Lo! 't is 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

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.