THE SILENCE.

There is a silence in the year's decline,

When leaf and fruit drop ripely from the tree ;

Rather, sweet Autumn, be thy silence mine,

Than youthful Spring's gay smile, or Summer's golden glee!

There is a silence in the widowed heart,

When one who loved it, one it loved, is gone;

It feels, but cannot speak, that grief to part,--
And makes within itself its low and lonely moan.

A sterner silence fills the heart, which feels

Its own glad power to make another's rest, Yet wins no kindred heart;-Time onward steals,

And, while it fain would bless, it still beats on unblest.

Yet, better is that silence, drear and still,

Than the wild tumult of unsobered joy; Sweeter calm Eve, that sleeps upon the hill,

Than Morn's deceitful beam, or Noontide's fierce

annoy.

No more, the pulse, which throbs within this breast, May leap-and ache-with thoughts that lack a

name;

Hail! the still Voice that lures from earthly rest,

The lonely shrine where burns celestial Hope's pure flame.

Ah! who would wish again that April day

Of Joy and Grief-the heart's uncertain Spring? Truth rides the storm; and Passion's parting ray

Glows with the rainbow light that toilsome years

shall bring!

THE ECHO.

Thou Nymph, that haunt'st these hanging rocks, unseen,
Oft have I in this grotto heard thy voice;

Its sound was silvery,—for my dear one spoke,
And thou didst steal her words and speak again :
Oh! hadst thou memory, Echo, could'st thou bring
That long lost music back!-This Cave should be
Thy temple, and myself thy worshipper.

Alas! thy life is in the fleeting hour,

Thou hast no heart to cherish gentle tones;

No soul is thine, where vows immortal live,

And hope a deathless Spring. Therefore, from hence

I bid thee fly! No voice untuneable

Shall wake thy accents; they were Mary's once,—

And, since thou dost forget her loving words,

This Grot is given to Silence and to me!

THE LIFE STREAM.

A Retrospection.

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
"I summon up remembrance of things past,
"I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
"And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste:
"Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
"For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
"And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe,
"And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight."

SHAKSPERE.

Like one who stands upon the reedy brink

Of some slow-moving river, so I pause,

And backward turn mine eye :-Ah me! how dull This Stream of Life.

I would 'twere Lethe's tide,

For, in these waters float some images
Whose shapes I fear :-pallid as death,

And cold are they, those Shapes of former days.
I loved them once ;—and yet I loathe them now.
For they are icy cold; lifeless, and cold;

Their very sight strikes chill upon my heart,
And, as I gaze, the pulse of life moves slow.
'Tis true, I nursed those Love-created visions,
And housed them in my heart. I fondly thought
They would be lights of gladness to mine eyes,
Sweet music to my ears,-my every sense
Steeping in happiness; 'till sense decayed.
And, so they lived with freshness in my heart,
As in their native soil, and seemed to draw
A life of Beauty from that heart's affections:
But Disappointment came ;-my heart fell sick,
Day after day it grieved, and pined, and withered,
Though none might mark its sorrow. Age drew on,
The Heart's old age and those sweet happy Visions
They all grew aged too :-and now, I see them
Poor faded relics of what once they were;
Soulless, and charmless; like disjointed fragments
Of some fair broken statue, Time-o'erthrown.