ll where?
From Space infinite echoed the reply:
Child of a transient day, thou too, to know, must die.

Ye Winds who blow and cleave the formless skies,
Ye Winds who blow with desolating breath,
Can ye reveal pre-natal mysteries,
And can ye solve the mystery of death?
Within thy ambient and viewless folds
Imprisoned in the air,
May not the spirits wait their earthly moulds?
Then tell ye where.
The answer came invisible and low:
Frail child of earthly clay, thou too must die to know.

What are your tidings, O ye raging Seas?
Do your waves wash the islands of the blest,
Or view the Gardens of Hesperides?
Know you the unborn spirits' place of rest?
And do your waters lave that unknown shore?
And when the night is gone,
Shall the freed spirit, tired and faint no more,
Behold the dawn?
The sad sea murmured, as its waves rolled high:
As all those gone before, thou, too, to know, must die.

The Suicide.

What anguish rankled 'neath that silent breast?
What spectral figures mocked those staring eyes,
Luring them on to Stygian mysteries?
What overpowering sense of grief distressed?

What desperation nerved that rigid hand
To pull the trigger with such deadly aim?
What deep remorse, or terror, overcame
The dread inherent, of death's shadowy strand?

Perhaps the hand of unrelenting fate
Fell with such tragic pressure, that the mind
In frenzy, uncontrollable and blind,
Sought but the darkness, black and desolate.

Perhaps 'twas some misfortune's stunning blight,
Perhaps unmerited, though deep disgrace,
Or vision of a wronged accusing face
Pictured indelibly before the sight.

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 pro