No voice is hush'd--no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free.
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyæna, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,--
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.




SONNET.

WRITTEN IN KEATS' "ENDYMION."


I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink
Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains
From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think
Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains.
And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps
In dear remembrance,--lonely, and forlorn,
Singing it to herself until she weeps
Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn:--
And as I mused, in dull imaginings,
There came a flash of garments, and I knew
The awful Muse by her harmonious wings
Charming the air to music as she flew--