Though hushed War's couchant tigers in their lair The tranquil time to _one_ brings not repose-- A voice was whispering to his soul--"Despair! The gods will give the triumph to thy foes." Can sleep, with leaden hand, our eyelids close When throng distempered fancies, and depart, And thought a shadow on the future throws? When shapes unearthly into being start, And, like a snake, Remorse uncoils within the heart? At midnight deep when bards avow that tombs Are by their cold inhabitants forsaken, The Roman chief his wasted lamp relumes, And calmly reads by mortal wo unshaken: His iron frame of rest had not partaken, And doubt--dark enemy of slumber--fills A breast where fear no trembling chord could waken, And on his ear an awful voice yet thrills That rose, when Caesar fell, from Rome's old Seven Hills. A sound--"that earth owns not"--he hears, and starts, And grasps the handle of his weapon tried; Then, while the rustling tent-cloth slowly parts, A figure enters and stands by his side: There was an air of majesty and pride In the bold bearing of that spectre pale-- The crimson on its robe was still undried, And dagger wounds, that tell a bloody tale Beyond the power of words, the opening folds unveil. With fearful meaning towers the phantom grim, On Brutus fixing its cold, beamless eye; The face, though that of Julius, seems to him Formed from the moonlight of a misty sky: The birds of night, affrighted, flutter by, And a wild sound upon the shuddering air Creeps as if earth were breathing out a sigh, And the fast-waning lamp, as if aware Some awful shade was nigh, emits a ghostly glare. Stern Brutus quails not, though his wo-worn cheeks Blanch with emotion, and in tone full loud Thus to the ghastly apparition speaks-- "Why stand before me in that gory shroud, Unwelcome guest! thy purpose unavowed; Art thou the shaping of my wildered brain?" The spectre answered, with a gesture proud, In hollow accents--"We will meet again When the best blood of Rome smokes on Philippi's plain." TO VIOLET. BY JEROME A. MABY.