DARKLY thou glidest onward, Thou deep and hidden wave! The laughing sunshine hath not look'd Into thy secret cave. Thy current makes no music. A hollow sound we hear, A muffled voice of mystery, VOL. VI. - 16 No brighter line of verdure The halcyon doth not seek thee, Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky, Thou dark and hidden wave! Yet once will day behold thee, Fresh bursting from their cavern'd veins, Leap thy lone waters free. There wilt thou greet the sunshine Oh! art thou not, dark river, Like the fearful thoughts untold, Those earth-born strange misgivings- Yet who hath breathed them to his friend, They hold no heart communion, The grave's departed throng. THE SILENT MULTITUDE. Wild is their course, and lonely, And fruitless in man's breast; They come and go, and leave no trace Yet surely must their wanderings, At length, be like thy way; Their shadows, as thy waters, lost In one bright flood of day! THE SILENT MULTITUDE. "For we are many in our solitudes." Lament of Tasso A MIGHTY and a mingled throng The soldier and his chief were there- The friends, the sisters of one hearth- There lovers met, between whose lives After that heart-sick hope deferr'd— You might have heard the rustling leaf, The shiver of an insect's wing, On that thick-peopled ground. 183 Your voice to whispers would have died, Your tread the softest moss have sought, What held the countless multitude Was it some pageant of the air— Some glory high above, That link'd and hush'd those human souls In reverential love? Or did some burdening passion's weight A mightier thing-Death, Death himself Kindred were there—yet hermits all— THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.' O EVER joyous band Of revellers amidst the southern vines! "Les sarcophages même chez les anciens, ne rappellent que des idées guerrières ou riantes:-on voit des jeux, des danses, representés en bas-relief sur les tombeaux." Corinne. THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE. On the pale marble, by some gifted hand, Thou, with the sculptured bowl, 185 And thou, that wearest the immortal wreath, And ye, luxuriant flowers! Linking the dancers with your graceful ties, Ye, that a thousand springs, And leafy summers with their odorous breath, May yet outlast,-what do ye there, bright things! Mantling the place of death? Of sunlight and soft air, Is it to show how slight The bound that severs festivals and tombs, Or when the father laid Haply his child's pale ashes here to sleep, |