SILENT assemblage! who have gone,
Before us to an unknown clime,
And left us desolate and lone,
Lost wanderers on the shore of Time-
Who hold a strange commune with those
That live, if sleep be called a life,
And come in hours of deep repose,
Relieved from Death's unearthly strife-
Who smile in early loveliness,
Sketching past scenes to present view,
A shadowy trace of blessedness,
Long faded, but, alas !—too new—
Who rest in calmness side by side,
So peaceful, yet so strange, so dread,
Yet o'er our waking visions glide
Phantoms by Fate or Fancy led-
O speak! but not in mysteries;
Too much of these appal us now;
Such hidden things already freeze,
Those drops which start from Horror's brow.