Perhaps the gnawing of some secret sin,
  Some aberration fraught with morbid gloom,
  A buried hope which ever burst its tomb,
Despondency, disaster, or chagrin.

That heart which throbbed in pain and discontent
  Is silent as the grave for which it yearned;
  That brain, which once with proud ambition burned,
Now oozes through the bullet’s ghastly rent.

Those eyes, transfixed with such a gruesome stare,
  Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright;
  The morning gave no presage of the night;
A smile may be the prelude of despair.

Whate’er his secret, it remains untold,
  For why to human anguish add one groan? 
  Is grief the deeper grief because unknown? 
So let the grave his form and burden hold.

Ye who have felt no crushing weight of care,
  From blame profuse, in charity refrain;
  Some depths of sorrow overwhelm the brain,
Some loads too great for human strength to bear.

I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.

I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
  How futile is earthy endeavor,
If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
  The tongue has been silenced forever.

For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
  When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
  In response to the agonized query!

We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
  With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
  With our vision of no discerning.

Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
  From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
  Framed also Death’s silent curtain.

Hope.

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
  A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,—­
  We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
  Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
  Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
  The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
  Responsive to each movement of his feet;
Yet through his grated window, he discerns
The star of hope which ever brightly burns.

A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs,
  Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight;
A young wife waves farewell.  As many days
  In passing turn her golden tresses white,
She scans the horizon through a mist of tears,
Hopes for that vanished sail which ne’er appears.