Poems (Storrie)/Silence

by Agnes Louisa Storrie

For works with similar titles, see Silence.

Silence

Oh! silence, thou unvisioned harp, whose strings
Beneath the touch of every sound vibrate,
Thou shoreless ocean, where like sea-birds' wings
That, fitful, skim the surface of a great
Impassiveness, our little human speech
Scarce ruffles thy repose, then sinks and dies
As echoless as thou. Oh silence! teach
Our human hearts the strength that in thee lies;
The depth of thy eternal calm is wrapped
The fretful circle of our lives about
As the round globe of earth itself is lapped
In the vast vagueness of the air without.
Thou art the voice of God, that underneath
The sounds of Time speaks, eloquent as death.