silence

Here the dead sleep--the quiet dead. No sound
Disturbs them ever, and no storm dismays.
Winter mid snow caresses the tired ground,
And the wind roars about the woodland ways.
Springtime and summer and red autumn pass,
With leaf and bloom and pipe of wind and bird,
And the old earth puts forth her tender grass,
By them unfelt, unheeded and unheard.
Our centuries to them are but as strokes
In the dim gamut of some far-off chime.
Unaltering rest their perfect being cloaks--

Someone was calling someone;
now they've stopped. Beyond the glass
the rose vines quiver as in
a light wind, but there is none:
I hear nothing. The moments pass,
or seem to pass, and the sun,
risen above the old birch,
steadies for the downward arch.

It is noon. Privacy is
one thing, but to be alone,
to speak and not to be heard,
to speak again the same word
or another until one
can no longer distinguish
the presence of silence or
what the silence is there for...

The Rav
of Northern White Russia declined,
in his youth, to learn the
language of birds, because
the extraneous did not interest him; nevertheless
when he grew old it was found
he understood them anyway, having
listened well, and as it is said, 'prayed
          with the bench and the floor.' He used
what was at hand--as did
Angel Jones of Mold, whose meditations
were sewn into coats and britches.
          Well, I would like to make,
thinking some line still taut between me and them,

If I should die this night, (as well might be,
So pain has on my weakness worked its will),
And they should come at morn and look on me

Lying more white than I am wont, and still
In the strong silence of unchanging sleep,
And feel upon my brow the deepening chill,

And know me gathered to His time-long keep,
The quiet watcher over all men's rest,
And weep as those around a death-bed weep --

There would no anguish throb my vacant breast,
No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek,

If we must part,
Then let it be like this.
Not heart on heart,
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
But touch mine hand and say:
"Until to-morrow or some other day,
If we must part".

Words are so weak
When love hath been so strong;
Let silence speak:
"Life is a little while, and love is long;
A time to sow and reap,
And after harvest a long time to sleep,
But words are weak."

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.
For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:
"I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.

I will not fight: though proud of pith
I hold no one worth striving with;
And should resentment burn my breast
I deem that silence serves me best:
So having not a word to say,
Contemptuous I turn away.
II
I will not fret: my rest of life
Free I will keep from hate and strife;
Let lust and sin and anger sleep,
I will not delve the subsoil deep,
But be content with inch of earth,
Where daisies have their birth.
III
I will not grieve: Till day be done
I will be tranquil in the sun,

358

If any sink, assure that this, now standing—
Failed like Themselves—and conscious that it rose—
Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding
How Weakness passed—or Force—arose—

Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment—
Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball—
When the Ball enters, enters Silence—
Dying—annuls the power to kill.

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Then let my right be forgotten.
Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember.
Let my left remember, and your right close
And your mouth open near the gate.

I shall remember Jerusalem
And forget the forest -- my love will remember,
Will open her hair, will close my window,
will forget my right,
Will forget my left.

If the west wind does not come
I'll never forgive the walls,
Or the sea, or myself.
Should my right forget
My left shall forgive,

If all the skies were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain
To feel once more upon them
The cooling splash of rain.

If all the world were music,
Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of silence,
To break the endless song.

If life were always merry,
Our souls would seek relief,
And rest from weary laughter
In the quiet arms of grief.