University of Virginia Library

SONNET.

What are the Past and Future? Shadows, lit
By the mind's twilight bloom, and all too dim
For clear perception; far and faint they swim
Before the visionary's eye and flit
Away in dusky folds, whose ourskirts wear
A mellow glow awhile and then resume
Oblivion's sable tinges. In the gloom
Of the o'ershadowed Past, with pensive air,
Pale Memory sits beside a sculptured urn,
Chanting the requiem of joys long fled;
And flickering tapers, for the parted dead,
Around her wasted form forever burn;
But Hope, on sunlight pinions, soars on high,
And hath her throne and glory in the sky.