Of candles, burning alone,--
Untrimmed, and all aflare
In the ghastly silence there!

II.

People go by the door,
Tiptoe, holding their breath,
And hush the talk that they held before,
Lest they should waken Death,
That is awake all night
There in the candlelight!

III.

The cat upon the stairs
Watches with flamy eye
For the sleepy one who shall unawares
Let her go stealing by.
She softly, softly purrs,
And claws at the banisters.

IV.

The bird from out its dream
Breaks with a sudden song,
That stabs the sense like a sudden scream;
The hound the whole night long
Howls to the moonless sky,
So far, and starry, and high.

THE DOUBT.

She sits beside the low window,
In the pleasant evening-time,
With her face turned to the sunset,
Reading a book of rhyme.

And the wine-light of the sunset,
Stolen into the dainty nook,
Where she sits in her sacred beauty,
Lies crimson on the book.

O beautiful eyes so tender,
Brown eyes so tender and dear,
Did you leave your reading a moment
Just now, as I passed near?

Maybe, 'tis the sunset flushes
Her features, so lily-pale;
Maybe, 'tis the lover's passion,
She reads of in the tale.

O darling, and darling, and darling,
If I dared to trust my thought;
If I dared to believe what I must not,
Believe what no one ought,--

We would read together the poem
Of the Love that never died,
The passionate, world-old story
Come true, and glorified.

THE THORN.

"Every Rose, you sang, has its Thorn,
But this has none, I know."
She clasped my rival's Rose
Over her breast of snow.

I bowed to hide my pain,
With a man's unskilful art;
I moved my lips, and could not say
The Thorn was in my heart!

THE MYSTERIES.

Once on my mother's breast, a child, I crept,
Holding my breath;
There, safe and sad, lay shuddering, and wept
At the dark mystery of Death.

Weary and weak, and worn with all unrest,
Spent with the strife,--
O mother, let me weep upon thy breast
At the sad mystery of Life!

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.

"The day had been one of dense mists and rains, and much of
General Hooker's battle was fought above the clouds, on the top of
Lookout Mountain."--GENERAL MEIG'S _Report of the Battle before
Chattanooga_.

Where the dews and