Poem by Thomas Hood

Silence

     Sonnet

There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush’d — no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan —
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

1. Written in Keats' “Endymion”
2. The Two Peacocks of Bedfont
3. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy
4. Song (The stars are with the voyager)
5. Stanzas (Is there a bitter pang for love removed)

Edgar Masters Silence ("I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea")

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