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Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness !

III.

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

For ever with unopened eye,

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

IV.

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 hath flung its black
And winged panels 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 elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

THE CONQUEROR WORM.

I.

Lo! 'tis 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.

II.

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!

III.

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.

IV.

But, see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!-with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And the angels sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

V.

Out-out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm;

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

I.

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.

II.

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!

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