Of souls in silence slain.

We saw the loathsome waste of death;

Sad soul at war with sense;

And suffering doomed to lingering breath;

And slandered innocence;

And beauty ravished at the bloom;

Saw strength flung prostrate; fall

The brave, life-worsted from the womb;

White truth made criminal:

Impotent, passionate, counting all,

We kissed——across a tomb ...

The lustrous clouds trailed proudly by:

And through a rift of dazzling sky

I cursed God with a dreary cry ...

The silence of the starry night;

The silver of the moonlit sea;

And loud in secret, stern, and trite,

The pulse of destiny.

Ah sadness scourged with doomed delight!

Ah wondrous misery!

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